Poland has again registered an increasing number of attempts to illegally enter the country via Belarus this summer, DPA reported, BTA reported.
From June to August, border guards recorded 13,800 such attempts, the Polish Interior Ministry announced today. In the same period last year, these attempts were 7,500.
Poland and the European Union accuse Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko of organizing the transportation of migrants from crisis-hit regions to the bloc's external border in order to put pressure on the West.
In the summer of 2022, Poland secured its border with Belarus with a 5.5-meter-high fence and an electronic surveillance system, DPA reports. Polish border guards consider illegal border crossings to be cases where migrants have crossed the fence or the border river and are caught by border guards on the Polish side of the border.
Since the border fence is located on Polish territory, cases where migrants are spotted directly in front of the fence but have not yet jumped over it are also counted. Poland, a member of the EU and NATO, has a border with Belarus that is about 400 kilometers long. Due to the ongoing tense situation, the Polish Ministry of the Interior has extended the operation of the restricted access zone along this border for another three months until December 4.
The restricted access zone is mostly 200 meters deep, but in some places it reaches four kilometers. Only security forces and local residents have access to it, while journalists and humanitarian organizations need special permission.