Migrant Crisis Intensifies at EU-Belarus Border

The border between Poland and Belarus has been the site of contention over the influx of migrants. (Wikimedia Commons)

Polish President Andrzej Duda extended Poland’s state of emergency another 60 days on October 10 after another month of crisis along Poland’s border with Belarus. Migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria, and Cameroon face dire conditions at the Belarusian border as tensions escalate over Belarus’s role in luring migrants in recent months. As a political confrontation unfolds between Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Belarus, migrants caught between the respective borders face cold, hunger, thirst, and death.

Countries such as Poland and the Baltics have accused Belarus of luring migrants to the borders of EU countries with promises of easy passage to countries where they can then apply for asylum. In response, EU states, namely Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, have tightened their borders and deployed guards to push migrants away, leaving them stranded between states that refuse to grant them asylum.

Belarus has denied these accusations. Ambassador Valentin Rybakov said in an informal UN Security Council meeting, “Belarus did not orchestrate the refugee crisis on its western borders.” European leaders see Belarus’s role in the refugee crisis as backlash against EU-imposed sanctions over fraud in Belarusian elections last year, in which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko retained his long grip on power.

Poland faces criticism from multiple directions for their deployment of armed forces and over alleged mistreatment of migrants at the border. Reports show Poland unlawfully pushing migrants out of the country, as well as refusing to give them food, shelter, and medical attention. Human rights groups, such as Fundacja Ocalenie, have condemned authorities for abandoning migrants and preventing activists from providing help. 

The Polish Catholic Church has urged the state to allow “humanitarian corridors” in order to help migrants stuck at the border. In an unusual move, the church has broken with the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) Party, which favors a strong response to the influx of migrants.

For PiS, this migrant crisis represents an opportunity to assert its law and order platform, echoing sentiments from the 2015 crisis involving Syrian refugees. The crisis comes during a time of waning PiS influence over the Polish parliament and the worsening rifts between Poland and the EU.

Opposition parties in Poland have also criticized the government’s response. MP Franciszek Sterczewski rebuked PiS’s claims of migrants being extremists and attempted to run food and supplies to migrants himself. Additionally, former Democratic Party opposition figure Wladyslaw Frasyniuk admonished Polish troops for “spitting on all the values their parents and grandparents… fought for.”

The Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan presents a serious challenge for European states which, since the Syrian refugee crisis, have yet to develop a unified migration policy. The current crisis at the Belarusian border reflects this challenge, with the treatment of refugees demonstrating broader European attitudes against letting more refugees claim asylum.