At night in the area of city Czeremcha, Belarusian soldiers began destroying a temporary border barrier, the Border Guard reported today. The Belarusians ripped out the fence posts and tore down the barbed wire using a service vehicle. “Polish services were blinded with laser beams and strobe light,” it was reported and added that the Belarusians equipped the foreigners with tear gas, which was used towards Polish services.
“At night in the area of city Czeremcha, Belarusian soldiers began to destroy the temporary border barrier. They ripped out the fence posts and ripped out the barbed wire with a service vehicle. Polish services were blinded by laser beams and strobe lights,” the Border Guard wrote on Twitter.
In one of the posts, the Border Guard attached a video showing someone blinding the Polish services with a laser beam and the light from searchlights.
A group of about 100 migrants was waiting for an opportunity to cross the border illegally, it added.
“Belarusians equipped the foreigners with tear gas, which was used towards Polish forces. We prevented this and other attempts to illegally cross the Polish-Belarusian border,” the Border Guard wrote.
Nieopodal ok.100-os.grupa migrantów oczekiwała na możliwość nielegalnego przekroczenia granicy. Białorusini wyposażyli cudzoziemców w gaz łzawiący, który został użyty w kierunku polskich służb. Tej oraz kolejnym próbom nielegalnego przekroczenia gr. ????zapobiegliśmy pic.twitter.com/aUq2WLbv0T
— Straż Graniczna (@Straz_Graniczna) November 13, 2021
A spokeswoman for the Podlasie branch of the Border Guard, Major Katarzyna Zdanowicz, specified that the attempt to cross the border took place at night from Friday to Saturday in Wólka Terechowska near Czeremcha. As she added, the involvement of Belarusian services was clearly visible there.
Zdanowska pointed out that no illegal border crossing had taken place. “All services were involved there and the attempt was foiled,” she added.
Since the beginning of the year, the Border Guard has recorded over 33,000 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.
The dam along the border with Belarus will be built on the length of 180 km in the Podlasie region. In the Lublin region, the natural barrier is the Bug River. In total, the dam will be 5.5 m high. Motion sensors and day and night cameras will be installed along the border.
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 a decree 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.