Warsaw
Poland accused Belarus on Wednesday of staging an armed cross-border intrusion and said it had sum-moned the Belarusian charge d’affaires to protest over what it said was “a deliberate escalation” of the migrant crisis at the frontier.
Belarus rejected the allegation as unfounded and intended to sully its image. Minsk also denies Polish and European Union accusations that it is deliber-ately encouraging illegal migrants to enter Poland and other EU states via Belarusian territory.
Poland has imposed a state of emergency at the border to stem a surge in the number of migrants from countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq trying to enter its territory via Belarus.
Poland’s foreign ministry said unidentified uni-formed individuals armed with long guns had crossed into Polish territory from Belarus on the night of Monday, Nov. 1.
“Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk for-warded an emphatic protest … against the violation of the Polish state border, emphasising that the ac-tions taken by the Belarusian authorities in recent weeks have the increasingly evident hallmarks of a deliberate escalation,” the ministry said in a state-ment.
“(He) pointed out that Poland deems such ac-tions unacceptable and will not tolerate them … and urged the Belarusian side to explain the incident immediately.”—Reuters
