BREST, 11 September (BelTA) – Hundreds of people are waiting in a queue at the Brest checkpoint to enter Poland, BelTA has learned.
The line consists of cars and buses with license plates from various regions of Belarus. Vehicles with Polish (PL) registrations are also among them. People laden with bags and suitcases are searching for free space in buses and cars. “I don't want to just turn around and go home,” a young woman remarked in passing.
“We're not sure they will open the border, so we decided to go early. We've been standing here since 11 am. We made it through and behind us came another 30 or so buses. We have another 30 hours [before Poland closes the border], I think we'll make it. The main thing is whether they are going to open it afterwards,” Polina, a resident of Mogilev, said.
The news of Poland's decision to temporarily close the border with Belarus was difficult for the young woman to hear. “We found out about it yesterday. I packed my things immediately. It was all very spontaneous, a very quick decision. This is better than the uncertainty later, especially since the tickets are very expensive, and everything through Lithuania has been sold out,” the young woman said.
Traveling with her on the same bus is Aleksandra from Grodno. She is trying to remain calm. “The news was shocking. I had to quickly decide whether to go or not, and to pack,” the Grodno resident said.
Roman from Polotsk left home much earlier than necessary. “The queue wasn't like this before. I'm in shock, to be honest. This is a first for me. For us, from Vitebsk Oblast, it's more convenient to travel via Latvia. But here, we need to get to Lublin. Our friend has already been waiting for about 8 or 9 hours. You read online about people waiting there for three days,” the man said. The waiting time is stretching out, and supplies are running out quickly. “The queues are, of course, long. We are traveling by car, and we are 80th in the queue,” Roman added.
News of Poland's border closure also caught Oleg by surprise. “It's an unexpected situation. We're trying to get through now. We packed our things in three hours. It all happened overnight. They said the border was closing, so we decided to leave. We took the first bus to the border that was available. We've been standing in the queue for about four hours, waiting, and we left at four in the morning. We cannot accept that they are closing the checkpoint. How can anyone accept this?” the man asked rhetorically.
“We're hoping for luck,” his travel companion Aleksandra said. But not everyone is able to maintain such composure. Many are at their breaking point.
Over the past month, the operation of the neighboring side has been extremely irregular. Polish services have been processing approximately one-third of the usual daily volume of transport. At times, they did not work at all. The peak occurred in August, when the wait time reached a week or more.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that Poland would close its border with Belarus at midnight from Thursday to Friday amid the Zapad 2025 exercise, which are scheduled to take place on 12-16 September. Polish Minister of the Interior and Administration Marcin Kierwiński stated that the closure of the border with Belarus would be temporary. He clarified that this involves a complete shutdown of all border crossings. He added that the regulation on closing the border with Belarus would be published on Wednesday.
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