In the past two days, Polish border guards have stopped over 600 attempts by migrants to illegally cross into the European Union from Belarus.
The Border Service reported this significant number of incidents on April 12, following a tense couple of days on April 10 and 11, during which 613 crossing attempts were recorded.
Escalating Tensions at the Border
According to the Border Service, the situation at the crossing has grown increasingly hostile, with "branches and stones being thrown at the patrols" and "foreigners also using gas."
As a result, one employee was injured, reports the Polish Border Service.
Six individuals were detained on suspicion of assisting migrants, and four migrants received medical attention due to their conditions.
This surge in border crossing attempts is part of a broader, persistent issue.
Since the summer of 2021, the regime of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has been accused of orchestrating a hybrid migration crisis, actively facilitating the movement of people from Africa and the Middle East towards EU borders.
Although the intensity of such incidents has somewhat decreased since the winter of 2021, the challenges continue to loom over the region.
Regional Responses to Migration
This phenomenon is not isolated to Poland and Belarus.
A similar situation has unfolded along the Russian-Finnish border. In response, Finland has taken stringent measures by indefinitely closing its land borders with Russia and recently shutting down maritime checkpoints in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland.
The Finnish Prime Minister convened a meeting with the heads of political factions to discuss legislative changes aimed at providing more effective tools to address the hybrid migration crisis.
