Poland says Belarus border migrant crisis may be prelude to ‘something worse’
- Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned the crisis was far from over as he toured Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia on Sunday to discuss the situation
- The situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover ‘may be used as the next stage of the migration crisis,’ said Morawiecki
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned on Sunday that the migrant crisis on the Belarus border may be a prelude to “something much worse”, and Poland’s border guard said Belarusian forces were still ferrying migrants to the frontier.
The European Union accuses Belarus of flying in thousands of people from the Middle East and pushing them to cross into EU and Nato members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, in response to European sanctions.
Minsk, which denies fomenting the crisis, cleared a migrant camp near the border on Thursday and started to repatriate some people to Iraq, while Poland and Lithuania reported lower numbers of attempts to cross their borders in recent days.
But Morawiecki warned the crisis was far from over as he toured Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia on Sunday to discuss the situation.
A poll published by Poland’s Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper on Sunday said 55 per cent of Poles are worried the crisis on the border could escalate into an armed conflict.
“I think that the things that unfold before our eyes, these dramatic events, may only be a prelude to something much worse,” Morawiecki said in Vilnius.