Poland's Border Guard said that 600 attempts of illegal border crossing had been recorded on Wednesday, and 19 migrants had been detained. Yesterday, the service also published a video showing a group of migrants in Usnarz Górny, forcing their way through the border into Poland.
Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have reported sharp increases in migrants from countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq trying to cross their frontiers from Belarus, in what Warsaw and Brussels say is a form of hybrid warfare designed to put pressure on the EU over sanctions it imposed on Minsk.
According to Polish Border Guard, 600 illegal attempts to cross the Polish-Belarusian border were prevented, and 19 people were detained on Wednesday alone. The service added that 16 of the detained were citizens of Iraq, two were from India, and one from Syria.
The Border Guard also informed that 11,300 attempts of illegal crossing of the said border have been recorded since the beginning of October, and 22,900 such attempts in 2021.
"Today foreigners camping out on the Belarusian side near Usnarz Górny forced the border. The persons threw tree trunks at the security fence. They threw stones at Border Guard officers and Polish Army soldiers, they were assisted by Belarusian services," the Border Guard said in a tweet with a video of the incident attached.
19-year-old Syrian found dead
Polish divers found the body of a 19-year-old Syrian man in a river on the Polish-Belarusian border on Wednesday, state news agency PAP reported, citing police and border guards.
The border guard have been looking for the man since Tuesday when they caught another Syrian who said he was pushed into the river by Belarusian services together with another man, PAP reported.
Divers found the body on Wednesday in the river Bug, which forms part of the border between Poland and Belarus.
"His identity was confirmed by the other young man with whom he tried to illegally cross the Bug a day earlier. We also found documents on the body. So there is no doubt that's the 19-year-old Syrian citizen," Lublin region police spokesman Andrzej Fijołek told PAP.
He added an investigation would be conducted into the death.
Rights groups have criticised Poland's nationalist government over its treatment of migrants at the border, with accusations of multiple illegal pushbacks. Six people have been previously found dead near the border since the surge of migrants.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters, PAP