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from: LIUDAS DAPKUS, Associated Press
Posted: Nov 21, 2021 / 8:19 am CST
Updated: 11/21/2021 / 11:38 AM CST
A local Muslim community buried a Yemeni migrant Mustafa Mohammed Murshed Al-Raimi in Bohoniki, Poland on Sunday, November 21, 2021. The person is one of about a dozen people from the Middle East and elsewhere living in an area of forests and bogs along the Polish-Belarusian border amid a stalemate with migrants between the two countries. The burial took place in the Muslim cemetery in Bohoniki, where a population of Muslim Tatars has lived for centuries. It was the second funeral parishioners held for a migrant in the past week. (AP Photo / Czarek Sokolowski)
VILNIUS, Lithuania (dpa) – Poland’s head of state warned on Sunday of further possible pressure from migrants on the European Union’s border with Belarus, this time from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki spoke in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius after talks with the Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte about ways of solving the “very difficult situation” at the borders of the EU members with Belarus. He was on a one-day tour to meet the Prime Ministers of the EU members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, who are also affected by migrant pressure.
All Heads of State or Government stressed the need to act together and said the border crisis caused by Belarus had strengthened their cooperation.
The EU says the new flood of migrants on its eastern borders was staged by the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in retaliation for EU sanctions against Belarus after cracking down on peaceful democracy demonstrators. It calls the move “a hybrid attack” on the entire bloc of 27 nations. Belarus denies the charges.
The Polish border guards said on Sunday that they had prevented the violent illegal entry of around 100 “very aggressive foreigners” who had been brought to the fenced border near the village of Czeremcha by Belarusian armed forces on Sunday.
Morawiecki said he expected migrant pressures on Poland and the EU to continue, but now from a different region, and claimed to be aware of “diplomatic” contacts Belarus and Russia had with Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
“An even more difficult scenario threatens,” said Morawiecki. “There will most likely be an attempt to use the crisis in Afghanistan as a new act in the migration crisis to capitalize on the remorse of the West in connection with the disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
In Latvia’s capital Riga, Morawiecki said: “Only the complete withdrawal of migrants and steps towards de-escalation can lead to a constructive scenario with Lukashenko.”
Morawiecki said earlier in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, that Poland was ready to make a financial contribution to the return flights home for migrants who had been stranded in the border’s damp forest for weeks. Warsaw is also ready to close all border crossings with Belarus in order to increase economic pressure on Lukashenko’s regime. The Polish crossing at Kuznica was closed last week.
Simonyte from Lithuania stressed that the EU should coordinate all further action against Belarus with countries at the forefront of these attacks – Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
“The European Commission has now taken over the technical discussions with Minsk. It is very important that no decisions are made that do not allow the situation to be resolved, ”Simonyte told reporters, warning against separate talks between Poland and Belarus.
Poland is pushing back the migrants, saying it is protecting the border for all of Europe and NATO. It has received words of support from the EU, NATO and the US
Some migrants died in the forests on the border. Others have given up hope of reaching Europe and were flown back to their home countries last week.
Poland’s Tatar community in the eastern village of Bohoniki held a third funeral for a migrant on Sunday and buried a 37-year-old Yemeni, Mustafa Mouhamad Murshid al-Raimi, who was found hypothermic in the forest on September 19.
The EU Commission made further allegations against Lukashenko on Sunday.
“During the crisis, Lukashenko acted like an unlicensed tour operator who sold expensive travel packages to the EU just so that they collapsed on arrival,” said EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson of the German “Welt am Sonntag”. “Families and children were deceived and lured into a tragedy that meant a lot of suffering.”
According to its own information, the Polish border guard has registered over 34,000 attempts to enter Poland illegally this year, of which over 17,000 in October and over 6,000 in November so far. Germany has registered several thousand who have come to its territory from Belarus.
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Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Jari Tanner in Tallinn and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw have contributed to this.
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Follow all AP global migration stories at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.
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https://www.kxan.com/news/international/poland-belarus-eyes-using-afghan-migrants-as-border-pawns/
