On Thursday, Poland will re-establish a buffer zone along part of its border with Belarus to deter migration, the Polish Government announced.
Warsaw accuses Moscow and Minsk of facilitating an influx of African migrants through Belarus into Poland.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that the buffer zone aims to make illegal border crossings more difficult and improve working conditions for the border guard, army, and police.
Polish Interior Minister Czslaw Mroczek explained that the zone will cover “the two areas where we have the most crossings,” spanning approximately “about sixty kilometres.”
He noted that “for about 45 kilometres, it’s a zone roughly 200 metres deep,” with potential deeper zones in nature reserves but “not more than 2 kilometres.”
Poland and Belarus share a border over 400 kilometres long, and in 2022, Poland built a 5.5-metre high fence along this border.
The Polish government had also established a buffer zone in the area in 2021.
Fifteen European Union (EU) member states recently urged the adoption of new strategies to manage the issue of irregular migration, including the formation of agreements with third countries located along major migration routes.
These countries, including the Czech Republic, have sent a letter to the European Commission advocating for changes to the bloc’s asylum policy.
The proposed changes include establishing mechanisms to monitor, intercept, and transfer migrants by land and sea to third-party partner countries outside the European Union until their asylum requests can be processed.
