In view of the increasing number of illegal border crossing attempts, Poland will establish a buffer zone in the border area with its authoritarian neighbour Belarus for security reasons, initially for 90 days. Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak signed a corresponding decree on Wednesday, which provides for the introduction of a restricted zone with a temporary ban on staying there. The regulation will come into force on Thursday.
Poland borders Russia’s ally Belarus to the east for around 400 kilometers. In recent months, the country has registered an increasing number of migrants who attempted to illegally cross the border from Belarus into the EU. The introduction of the exclusion zone is intended to make illegal smuggling more difficult and to support the work of border guards, the army and the police. It is also seen as a response to a fatal knife attack on a Polish soldier at the border fence at the end of May.
The buffer zone will extend 60 kilometers along the border and, according to reports, will extend 200 meters, but in a few places up to two kilometers, deep into the country. The affected area does not include any cities or tourist routes. The media and aid organizations will also be given access to the exclusion zone and will be allowed to enter it with a permit. “There is no reason to cut off the border from the media,” Siemoniak said on Polish radio.
Poland and the EU accuse Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of bringing migrants from crisis regions to the EU’s external border in an organized manner in order to put pressure on the West. Despite the construction of a 5.5-meter-high fence and an electronic monitoring system, migrants attempt to cross the border irregularly every day. Since the beginning of the year, the Polish border guard has already registered more than 18,000 such attempts.
