According to the Polish government, Belarus has started to take the migrants camped at the closed Kuźnica-Brusgi border crossing to another location by bus. Thousands of migrants had recently stayed on the Polish-Belarusian border and hoped to enter the EU country Poland. “I got the information that Lukashenko has provided the first buses that the migrants get on and drive away. The tent camp near Kuźnica is emptying,” Poland’s Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik told TV Republika on Tuesday. “It looks like Lukashenko lost this battle for the border.”
Belarusian state media published videos of four coaches. These should bring some of the migrants “to other places”, it said, citing the Red Cross. This should prevent the new camp from getting too crowded.
According to estimates by the Polish border guards on Tuesday, around 2000 migrants gathered near Kuźnica. On Tuesday there were clashes between refugees and Polish security forces at Kuźnica. Poland used water cannons. According to Polish information, the migrants threw stones, bottles and clods of earth. They were also equipped with burst grenades and slingshots. The information cannot be independently verified as Poland does not allow the media into the border region.
According to the Polish police on Wednesday morning, the night passed quietly. A police spokesman said some of the migrants on the Belarusian side had returned to the former camp, while others had spent the night at the Belarusian border clearance terminal. At other border sections, however, there were attempts to enter illegally, said the spokeswoman for the border guard.
Poland criticizes Merkel and Macron’s attempts to mediate
Meanwhile, Poland has criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel’s attempts to mediate and French President Emmanuel Macron during the crisis. Government spokesman Piotr Müller told the public broadcaster TVP on Wednesday that the government in Warsaw had to be informed in advance of Merkel’s phone call with the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko and Macron’s conversation with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. He personally wondered about the conversation with Lukashenko, because this was “in a way the acceptance of his choice,” said Müller. “I understand the situation, but I think it’s not a good move.”
Merkel had called Lukashenko on Monday evening in view of the plight of the migrants. It was her first conversation with the ruler since the controversial presidential election on August 9th last year in Belarus. The EU does not recognize Lukashenko as president. The background to this is massive allegations of fraud in the election and the actions of the Belarusian security forces against peaceful demonstrators and civil society.
Also on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron had a long phone call with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin about the role Russia could play in resolving the conflict. Putin spoke to Lukashenko on Tuesday.
On Poland’s border with Belarus, thousands of migrants on the Belarusian side have been waiting in makeshift camps at temperatures around freezing for several days. The Polish government and the EU are accusing the authoritarian Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of targeting people from crisis regions in order to smuggle them into the EU.