Poland fears protracted migrant crisis | Abroad

According to the minister, migrants “attacked the border again last night.” The border guard counted 161 attempts to cross the border on Tuesday. That day, Polish security forces used tear gas and water cannons against migrants who threw stones and other objects. That was a major escalation in the months-simmering issue that also affects Latvia and Lithuania. Nine police officers, a border guard and a soldier were injured, but none of them had to stay in hospital.

Several thousand migrants, mainly from Iraq and Syria, are bivouacking in the border area, urged to do so by the regime of President Aleksander Lukashenko. He did so in retaliation for European sanctions, EU countries say.

View images of the situation at the Polish border with Belarus. Article continues below the video.

The migrants no longer all have to spend the night in tents. Belarus has admitted some of them to a makeshift residence where about a thousand people spent the night last night. An estimated 2,000 others slept in their tented camps in the woods trying to keep warm with campfires.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Lukashenko on Monday about the crisis, his first phone call with a Western leader since he cracked down on mass protests last year. Poland and the Baltic countries were not happy about this. Lukashenko’s ally Russia welcomed the “very important” contact.

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