More than 2,000 migrants are currently stranded at the Polish border, voluntarily brought there by the Belarusian authorities.
The government of Alexander Lukashenko is using these people to put pressure on the European Union and force it to abandon the sanctions taken against its regime.
For its part, Poland, at odds with the European Union and intransigent on the issue of migrants, is blocking the situation by refusing any external intervention.
For several weeks, rare press images and videos shot by Polish law enforcement agencies have shown migrants massed on the border with Belarus.
Thousands are said to want to enter the European Union.
Poland prevents them from entering its soil, and it is impossible for them to reverse: they are blocked by the Belarusian authorities.
Behind this impasse and the reception of these human beings totally on their own, lie several political issues.
20 Minutes
takes stock.
How did these migrants end up stranded on the border between Belarus and Poland?
More than 2,000 migrants are currently camping in the cold in front of the Polish border, on the Belarusian side. They did not get here alone. "Since July, Belarus has been granting tourist visas to nationals of around twenty countries", explains Virginie Guiraudon, research director at the CNRS at the Center for European Studies at Sciences Po Paris. They arrive by plane from Iraq, Turkey, the Middle East, the Maghreb or Africa. "Once they arrive in Minsk, they are taken to the border by the police, who make them dangle the fact that they will be able to enter Germany very easily", continues the specialist in European migration policies.
But once there, these migrants actually find themselves stranded at the Polish border, where the authorities have erected high barbed barriers.
Polish side: no less than 15,000 border guards, police and military.
Belarusian side: police forces preventing them from turning back.
"They sometimes took their cellphones, their belongings or fired shots in the air," reports Virginie Guiraudon.
Why is the situation particularly critical?
Families with young children find themselves trapped on this small strip of land in the heart of a swampy and thick forest.
Due to the onset of winter, very cold in the region, their situation is particularly dangerous.
"They sleep outside, there are no shelters, some get lost in this immense forest because there are not really any paths", reports Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, research director at the CNRS and author of numerous books. and scientific journal articles on migration and migration policies.
A dozen migrants have already died on the spot, some of hypothermia.
A situation made worse by the fact that Poland has declared a state of emergency and hardly allows any NGOs to access the area.
Why did Belarus bring migrants to the Polish border?
"This situation was created from nothing by the government of Alexander Lukashenko, with the idea of putting pressure on the European Union following the sanctions taken by it", assures Virginie Guiraudon. The EU has accused the government of having rigged the presidential elections in August 2020. Alexander Lukashenko emerged victorious and is currently serving a sixth consecutive term. Tensions escalated last May, when the Belarusian government hijacked a Ryanair plane in order to arrest opponent Roman Protassevich. Several EU member states then jointly applied financial sanctions against Belarus.
"To scare Europe by using migrants as hostages is a new form of international diplomatic pressure", analyzes Catherine Wihtol de Wenden. Indeed, if this is the first time that Belarus has acted in this way, it is not the first country to do so. In February 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan left his country's borders open to put pressure on Brussels. More recently, in May 2021, Morocco was accused of blackmailing Spain by smuggling its nationals into the enclave of Ceuta. “This is what we call the instrumentalization of migrants”, summarizes Virginie Guiraudon. The fact remains that for the two experts, using human beings as a means of pressure has little chance of working with the European Union.
Why does the situation remain blocked?
Belarus denies outright having organized the arrival of migrants to the EU's borders.
Difficult, in these conditions, to dialogue and find a way out.
Hopes are therefore turned to Poland.
But the country is not known to welcome migrants with open arms.
In 2015, during the refugee crisis, he made it clear that he did not want asylum seekers on his soil.
Government policy does not appear to have changed since.
"The number of soldiers deployed at the border is particularly large compared to the number of migrants," notes Virginie Guiraudon, who finds the situation almost disproportionate.
“There is a will of the government not to let the situation get bogged down with the installation of camps, as is the case for example in Greece.
"
The EU institutions and some member states have offered financial and logistical assistance to Poland, but it categorically refuses it for the time being.
"Poland considers that the European Union does not have to tell it what to do in the matter", explains the director of research at Sciences Po. "The Polish constitutional court, which is not considered as independent, affirmed mi - October that European law was not superior to Polish law ”, continues the expert.
That is to say, it allows itself not to respect the decisions of the EU or the European Court of Justice in terms of respect for human rights.
What could be the outcome of this migratory crisis?
By refusing European aid, Poland is blocking the situation.
However, if Belarus is at the origin of this situation, Warsaw "could be accused of non-assistance to people in danger if it leaves migrants to die at its door," underlines Catherine Wihtol de Wenden.
A tragedy that could be avoided if Poland decided to let humanitarian aid pass.
On the other hand, "to at least know if these migrants can apply for asylum - which is their right - or if they must be sent home, they must be allowed to pass to control and register them", assures Virginie. Guiraudon.
A mission, says the expert, which the European authorities could take on and which would allow us to hope for a way out of the crisis.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council is scheduled for Thursday on the subject.
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