By UME
Once again, Poland and Lithuania are proving that they will not be fooled by so-called “refugees”. epochtimes writes:
Poland has called on migrants at the border with Belarus by SMS to turn back. As the Ministry of the Interior announced, it sent almost 31,000 short messages to foreign telephone numbers in the border area on Tuesday alone. The English statement said: “The Polish border is tight. The BLR (Belarusian) authorities have told you lies. Go back to Minsk!”
The messages also included a link to a website that warned migrants in five languages that illegal border crossings could end up in prison. It also said the deteriorating weather conditions could be dangerous for “life and health.” “Any attempt to hide and sleep outdoors can end tragically,” the authorities warned, after six migrants have already died at the EU’s border with Belarus.
In recent weeks, Poland has stationed thousands of soldiers at the border, erected a barbed wire fence and imposed a state of emergency prohibiting journalists and aid organizations from entering the entire 400-kilometer border. The Interior Ministry on Monday recommended extending the state of emergency by 60 days, as many of the migrants crossing the border have links to “radical or criminal groups.”
Human rights organizations, in turn, have warned of a “humanitarian crisis at the border” if the migrants stuck there do not have access to food, shelter and medical care.
Since the beginning of August, according to government figures, 8200 migrants have been prevented from entering Poland and 1200 have been taken into custody after crossing the border. Polish border guards also said they had thwarted 473 crossing attempts on Tuesday – a record for a single day.
Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have been complaining for several months about the increased arrival of migrants, especially from the Middle East, at their borders with Belarus. The EU expects a retaliatory action by Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko for Brussels sanctions decisions. It is believed that the Belarusian authorities are deliberately bringing the migrants into the country and smuggling them to the borders with the eastern EU states.
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson wants to travel to Warsaw on Thursday because of the refugee crisis to talk to Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski about a planned tightening of the asylum law. According to the planned law, the authorities would not have to examine the asylum applications of migrants if they were arrested “immediately after illegally crossing the EU’s external border”. The Commission has “several question marks,” Johansson said on Wednesday.
This article previously appeared on epochtimes.de.