Poland stops first irregular migrants after reinstating border checks
The first smuggler transferring illegal migrants through the border between Poland and Lithuania was stopped just before midnight on the night of Sunday to Monday, the Polish Border Guard has reported.
"The border with Lithuania. An Estonian national was apprehended for transporting four illegal migrants, most probably citizens of Afghanistan," the Border Guard wrote on the X platform on Monday night.
Also on Monday, Michal Bura of the local Border Guard told PAP that the reinstated border checks at the Polish-Lithuanian border crossing of Budzisko were going smoothly, and took no more than a few minutes at a time.
Temporary selective checks on Poland's frontiers with Lithuania and Germany were introduced on July 7 due to a spike in illegal migration through the country's borders.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said later on Monday that the four Afghan nationals "have twice rebounded from our fence at the border with Belarus and have been registered by our Border Buard."
According to Tusk, Belarusian law enforcement services in such cases are re-routing migrants to the borders with Latvia and Lithuania.
Tusk made the announcement at a joint press conference with his Dutch counterpart, Dick Schoof. Explaining the reason for introducing border checks, the Polish prime minister said: "We're doing this for you as well, for the Germans, for the Dutch, for the French, because this is the European Union border."
Warsaw has been accusing Minsk of masterminding, in collaboration with Moscow, a migration crisis on the border with Poland in a bid to destabilise the EU.
Markus Lammert, spokesman for the European Commission (EC), confirmed in Brussels on Monday that the EC had received a notification from Poland on reinstating temporary border checks for 30 days at the country's borders with Germany and Lithuania.
Lammert said such a move is legal, but must be closely coordinated with the EU and interested member states. (PAP)
wpb/mf/jd/mf
