Belarusian services were said to have threatened Polish soldiers with opening fire in their direction. The threats were reported by the Ministry of Defense. According to the ministry, “yesterday’s actions of the Belarusian services were an attempt to hide the fact of the passage of a group of immigrants.
“Yesterday, there was another provocation against Polish soldiers on duty at the border. The military located a group of about 250 migrants near the fence. The Belarusian soldiers guarding them threatened to open fire in the direction of our soldiers.”
– wrote the Ministry of Defense on Twitter.
The ministry conveyed that the military did not let themselves be provoked. “The actions of the Belarusian soldiers looked like an attempt to escalate the situation, but were also an attempt to hide the fact of the passage of a group of migrants to the territory of Poland,” it was reported.
The Ministry of National Defence reminded that this was yet another example of Belarusians getting involved in pushing migrants into Poland. On Wednesday morning, the spokesman for the minister coordinator of special services Stanislaw Zaryn wrote on Twitter that on Tuesday night, Polish soldiers spotted three uniformed individuals with long guns who, after trying to make contact, reloaded their weapons and moved away in the direction of Belarus. A spokesman for the Minister of the Coordinator of Special Services further informed that the persons had entered the territory of Poland several hundred metres from the border. In connection with the incident, both the Polish Foreign Ministry and the Border Guard decided to address formal protests to the Belarusian side.
Wczoraj doszło do kolejnej prowokacji wobec polskich żołnierzy pełniących służbę na granicy. Wojskowi zlokalizowali grupę ok. 250 migrantów w pobliżu ogrodzenia. Pilnujący ich białoruscy żołnierze zagrozili otwarciem ognia w kierunku naszych żołnierzy.
— Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej ?? (@MON_GOV_PL) November 4, 2021
On Wednesday, border guards recorded 433 attempts to illegally cross the Polish-Belarusian border. Nine people were detained: 6 Iraqi citizens, 2 Syrian citizens and a Turkish citizen. 67 people were ordered to leave the territory of the Republic of Poland.
Since the beginning of the year, the Border Guard has recorded over 30,000 attempts to illegally cross the Polish-Belarusian border, including nearly 17,300 in October, nearly 7,700 in September and over 3,500 in August.
Since 2 September, due to migratory pressure in the border zone with Belarus, a state of emergency has been in force in 183 towns in Podlaskie and Lubelskie voivodeships. It was introduced for 30 days by an order of President Andrzej Duda, issued at the request of the Council of Ministers. The parliament agreed to extend the state of emergency for another 60 days.