MINSK, 23 September (BelTA) – Violence towards refugees is bound to have a boomerang effect for Poland, director of the Center for European Integration Yuri Shevtsov said in an interview to Alpha Radio, BelTA learned from sb.by.
One of the main topics of the radio program was the situation with migrants on the border between Belarus and the EU countries. “I think the most difficult situation is now on the border with Poland. This is due to the fact that crowds of migrants have decided to go directly to Germany through Poland, rather than through two countries they used before (Lithuania-Poland-Germany). There is still traffic to Lithuania and Latvia, too, but refugees headed en masse for Poland. A few days ago Poland reported that it ‘turned back' more than 320 people within 24 hours. I do not want to complicate things, but those who are caught and ‘turned back' are not everyone who manages to pass through. They have already reached Germany and other countries. In reality, the flow is much higher than the official statistics from Poland,” the expert said.
In his words, bad weather aggravates the problem. “What has been long foreseen has finally took place: cold weather has come and created new problems like hypothermia deaths. The situation is only likely to become more complicated with time,” he said.
The political analyst believes that forceful actions of Polish border guards towards migrants will have negative consequences for Poland itself.
“It will turn out badly for the country. We all understand what border guards and related power services do in Lithuania and Poland: they intimidate migrants not to go to them. There is a term “terror”. This attitude towards refugees is bound to turn out badly for Poland,” says Yuri Shevtsov.
As BelTA reported earlier, Belarusian border guards discovered an unconscious foreigner with signs of physical abuse at the Belarus-Poland border on 21 September. Meanwhile, Polish security forces were calmly watching what was happening on their side of the border. According to the State Border Committee, Polish doctors examined the man a day before. However, “despite the grave condition that continued to deteriorate, all that the Polish doctors did was giving an anesthetic drug”. The State Border Committee added that the officers of the neighboring state simply dumped the foreigner at the border with Belarus.
