A group of 55 migrants has been returned to Belarus by the Polish Border Guard after they managed to reach Polish territory.
Polish border guards stopped the group near the town of Czeremsza last night. The Poles said they were pelted with stones by the migrants. A border guard was injured in the face. The migrants have been detained and returned to the border.
A border guard spokesman said groups of migrants had attempted a total of 52 times to cross the border from Belarus in 24 hours. Another group of 28 migrants attempted to enter Poland on Friday evening. Barbed wire fences have been placed along the border to stop them.
Push-backs
It is estimated that there are still 3,500 migrants in Belarus. Some of them are trying to reach the EU. Tent camps have been set up in the border area, where the migrants are often under appalling conditions have to stay in the freezing cold.
The West accuses Belarusian President Lukashenko of using the migrants as pawns to destabilize the EU, in revenge for European sanctions against his regime. Hundreds of migrants have now been returned to Iraq by special flights from Minsk.
Poland’s parliament passed a law in October that would allow migrants to immediately return the border if they enter the country illegally, with so-called push-backs. Dunja Mijatović, Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe has called on EU member states to oppose allowing those push-backs.
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