Graphic shows details of Poland-Belarus border crisis.
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POLITIEK

Grenscrisis Polen - Wit-Rusland verergert

By Jordi Bou

November 9, 2021 - Poland has warned of a possible “armed” escalation on its border with Belarus, fearing that Minsk may try to provoke a confrontation as hundreds of migrants seek to cross into the EU.

Thousands of migrants sought to storm the border from Belarus into Poland on Monday, cutting razor wire fences and using branches to try and climb over them. The siege escalated a crisis along the EU's eastern border that has been simmering for months.

Poland's government spokesperson, said 3,000 to 4,000 migrants were next to the Polish border on the Belarusian side.

Polish border officials said the border crossing in Kuznica, in the northeast, will be closed early Tuesday.

Poland, EU and NATO accuse Belarus of orchestrating the crisis as a revenge for Western sanctions
on the authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price stressed that the U.S. “strongly condemns the Lukashenko regime’s political exploitation and coercion of vulnerable people and the regime’s callous and inhumane facilitation of irregular migration flows across its borders”.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 09/11/2021; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: Getty Images
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