A large number of migrants in Belarus attempted to rush the international border of Poland in an attempt to cross it over by using branches to climb and cutting fences made out of razor wires, according to US media reports.
The chaotic scenes at the international border included Polish officers spraying chemicals through the metallic fence on a man trying to get past it. Videos of migrants throwing objects at law enforcement and defense officials were also floated.
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The Polish interior ministry, however, said that the situation was under control in an attempt to rebuff the attempted siege on Monday.
Defense Ministry video taken later Monday showed the migrants settling in for the night by the border, having put up scores of tents and cooking meals.
Stanislaw Zaryn, the spokesperson for Poland’s security forces, said in a statement after the incident, “A coordinated attempt to massively enter the territory of the Republic of Poland by migrants used by Belarus for the hybrid attacks against Poland has just begun”, according to reports from Associated Press.
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Noting that it’s also NATO’s eastern border, Zaryn stressed that the “large groups of migrants … are fully controlled by the Belarusian security services and army.”
Zaryn further linked the attempted invasion on Monday to sanctions on Minsk after an alleged crackdown on protests. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko was tagged as destablising factor in the European alliance.
Piotr Mueller, Poland’s government spokesperson, said 3,000 to 4,000 migrants were next to the Polish border on the Belarusian side.
Anton Bychkovsky, a spokesperson for Belarus’ State Border Guard Committee, told The Associated Press that the migrants at the border are seeking to “exercise their right to apply for refugee status in the EU.” Bychkovsky insisted they “are not a security threat.”
(With AP inputs)
