Border Escalation: Illegal Immigrants Use Pyrotechnics To Attack Polish Border Guards

Details.

More than 430 attempts to illegally cross the border were recorded on the Belarusian-Polish border from June 7 to 9.

Five people were detained for helping to organize illegal migration — citizens of Ukraine, Estonia, Syria, Azerbaijan, and Poland.

Illegal immigrants threw tree branches, stones, and firecrackers at Polish patrols, the Polish border service reported.

The border zone has become a source of tension since 2021, when Belarus transported migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Poland and the Baltic states. EU authorities said that this was done with the aim of creating chaos and destabilizing the region. Western officials called on Minsk to remove all illegal migrants from the border areas and return them to the countries from which they came.

In mid-August 2023, Lithuania decided to close two of the six border crossing points with Belarus, and Latvia announced the mobilization of additional border guards “due to the rapidly growing hybrid threat on the Latvian-Belarusian state border”. “We are ready to act in a unified manner to help, to make decisions, including closing the border,” said Lithuanian Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė.