Poland announced on Thursday that it had completed the construction of a steel wall along its border with Belarus, intended to deter migrants from crossing it, accusing Minsk of allowing their influx to “destabilize” the region.
Since last summer, thousands of migrants and refugees, mainly from the Middle East, have crossed or tried to cross this border.
The West has accused the Belarusian regime of orchestrating this influx with its Russian ally, as part of a “hybrid” attack, which Minsk denies.
In response, Poland has set up a no-go area along this border for non-residents, including aid workers and the media.
It dispatched thousands of soldiers and police there, launched the construction of the barrier and approved a law authorizing the refoulement of migrants to Belarus, a practice condemned by international organizations and justice.
“The barrier we have built separates us from the dark dictatorship of [dirigeant biélorusse Alexandre] Lukashenko,” Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski told the press.
Belarus “shares responsibility for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine”, he insisted, speaking in front of the barrier, in the border town of Kuznica.
The barrier, 5.5 meters high, stretches over 186 kilometers, and its cost is estimated at 350 million euros.
At least a dozen people died on the Polish-Belarusian border where, during the winter, migrants and refugees, many fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, faced grueling and freezing conditions.
On Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Poland in two separate cases of refoulement of Chechen asylum seekers at the border with Belarus.
The Court notably ruled in favor of a family of seven Russians from Chechnya, including four minor children, who had presented themselves 16 times at the border between Belarus and Poland.
Polish border guards refused them asylum requests and sent them back to Belarus “with the risk of deportation and ill-treatment in Chechnya”, writes the ECHR.
The applicants had highlighted the “degrading” nature of the treatment inflicted by the Polish authorities and recalled the prohibition of collective expulsions of foreigners, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland has on the other hand opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees.