WARSAW — Poland on Tuesday took steps to extend
emergency measures restricting access to its border with
Belarus which is at
the center of a migrant crisis the West blames on Minsk.
اضافة اعلان
A controversial state of emergency barred all non-residents
— including journalists and NGOs — from the border area where thousands of
mainly Middle Eastern migrants have been blocked from entering the EU.
The West has accused Belarusian President Alexander
Lukashenko's regime of orchestrating the crisis and posing a so-called hybrid
threat to the EU, which Minsk denies.
Poland's conservative-controlled parliament on Tuesday
rejected Senate amendments allowing journalists to travel to the border and
President Andrzej Duda signed new measures allowing the interior minister to
ban access to parts of the border area depending on the situation.
Under Polish law, a state of emergency can last three months
at most. The current measures started in September and were due to end at
midnight on Wednesday.
In response to the influx of migrants, Poland built a barbed
wire fence and massed thousands of soldiers along its 400km border with
Belarus, leaving the migrants stranded in camps.
Polish media estimate that at least 12 people have died on
both sides of the border.
Human Rights Watch this week said Poland shared
responsibility for migrants' "acute suffering" in the border area and
accused Warsaw and Minsk of "serious human rights violations".
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