Migration crisis in Belarus: Angela Merkel asks Vladimir Putin to intervene

Published on : 11/10/2021 – 13:36

German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked Russian President Vladimir Poutine “to act” against the “instrumentalization” of migrants by Belarus, her spokesperson Steffen Seibert said on Wednesday (November 10th).

In a telephone interview, the outgoing Chancellor judged “unacceptable and inhuman (…) the instrumentalisation of migrants” on the border between Poland and Belarus where thousands of them are trapped, according to a spokesperson’s tweet.

During the interview, at the initiative of “the German side”, “concerns were expressed about the humanitarian consequences” of this migratory crisis, the Kremlin said in a statement.

President Putin “proposed that discussions (…) be arranged directly between EU members and Minsk,” he added.

About 3,000 and 4,000 migrants, mainly Kurds from the Middle East, have been massed for several days in a wooded area on the eastern border of the European Union, under freezing temperatures and facing a large Polish device intended to stop them .

On Tuesday, the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, bluntly designated the Russian president as the “sponsor”, according to him, of the wave of migrants. The Kremlin on Wednesday ruled “unacceptable” to be held responsible for this situation.

The Europeans have accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for months of fueling the crisis by issuing visas to migrants in revenge for the European sanctions taken against his country for its repression of the opposition since the presidential election of 2020.

The German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, on Wednesday declared himself in favor of new European Union sanctions against Belarus, believing that President Alexander Lukashenko was exploiting migrants “without scruple” by sending them to the Polish border.

Arrest of dozens of migrants

For its part, on the ground, Poland announced Wednesday that it had arrested more than fifty migrants and reported an increase in attempts to cross the border, not without affirming that some had succeeded, without specifying the number.

Tomasz Krupa, spokesperson for the regional police in Podlaskie, on the border with Belarus, told AFP that more than 50 migrants who crossed the border had been arrested and that others were wanted.

Also in Podlaskie, border guard spokeswoman Katarzyna Zdanowicz said three people – a Russian, a Lithuanian and a Swede – had been arrested for helping “organize illegal crossings”, adding that they risk eight years in prison.

“The situation is not calm,” Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told the radio. If on Monday it was a large group trying to cross, he said that now many smaller groups “simultaneously attack the Polish border in several places”.

He said that “some 15,000 soldiers” protect the Polish borders.

Mariusz Blaszczak said Belarus is intimidating migrants into forcing them across the border and tweeted two short videos claiming they show a gunshot fired by a man in uniform on the Belarusian side.

Belarusian foreign minister Vladimir Makei retorted that the EU had triggered this crisis as a “pretext” to impose new sanctions on Minsk, calling for a “common reaction” with Russia, during a visit to Moscow Wednesday.

The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, added by affirming that Minsk and Moscow had “effectively strengthened their collaboration to counter a campaign against Belarus launched by Washington and its European allies within international organizations”.

In a statement, the Belarusian border guard service finally accused the Polish soldiers of “physical violence and the use of gas” towards the migrants, as well as “shooting over their heads”.

With AFP