Thousands of migrants who arrived with a Belarusian visa in the hope of reaching the European Union found themselves massed on the Polish border on Tuesday, Warsaw denouncing an "attack" orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow.

Arrived Monday in a wooded area on the eastern border of the European Union, around 3,000 to 4,000 migrants, mainly Kurds from the Middle East, find themselves facing barbed wire and the large military device deployed by Warsaw, determined to destroy them. stop.

According to Minsk border guards, these migrants who have improvised a camp on the Belarusian side, near the Polish border post of Kuznica, are in an "extremely bad" physical and psychological state, notably in lack of water and food.

Access to the site is blocked to journalists, but images released by authorities in both countries show hundreds of men, women and children in tents or on the ground, trying to warm themselves around fires by temperatures close to zero.

No submission but no fight either

Belarusian border guards also accused Polish forces of using tear gas and exerting "psychological pressure" on migrants by "turning on speakers, spotlights and strobe lights all night long". Monday to Tuesday. "Shots were also heard," they said on Telegram. The fate of these thousands of people was the subject throughout Tuesday of a war of words between Minsk and Warsaw.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Moscow, insisted that his country "will not kneel" in front of the EU, while assuring that it "was not looking for a fight", aware of the risk of cases of armed conflict.

Previously, Lukashenko had spoken with his Russian ally Vladimir Poutine by telephone, to which he complained of the "particularly worrying" deployment of Polish troops at the border, according to the Kremlin.

"Defending Poland's borders is defending the EU"

As a sign that the tension is unprecedented, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki spoke frankly to accuse Moscow and the Russian president of being the real sponsor of the crisis.

Belarusian President Alexander "Lukashenko is the executor of the latest attack, but this attack has its sponsor who is in Moscow and this sponsor is President Putin," he said during an emergency meeting of the Polish Parliament.

“Migrants from the Middle East are brought to Belarus by plane and serve as human shields to destabilize the situation in Poland and the EU.

Defending Poland's borders means defending the eastern flank of NATO and the EU, ”he added.

Europeans have been accusing Alexander Lukashenko for weeks of fueling the crisis by issuing visas to migrants in revenge for the European sanctions adopted against his country for its repression of the opposition since the 2020 presidential election.

World

Poland: Thousands of migrants massed at the border, Warsaw fears escalation with Belarus

World

Migrants: Warsaw denounces massive attempt to violate EU border

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