Polish forces fire tear gas and water at migrants who throw stones on the border with Belarus

The forces of Poland in the town of Kuznica (east) they fired tear gas at migrants who threw stones along the border with Belarus, the Polish Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday.

“Kuznica: Migrants attacked our soldiers and officers with stones and are trying to destroy the fence and enter Poland. Our forces used tear gas to quell the aggression of the migrants ”, the ministry said on Twitter.

The Polish government estimates the number of migrants at between 3,000 and 4,000, many of them Iraqi Kurds, camped along its border, enduring freezing temperatures and locked between pressure from Belarusian forces and containment from Polish soldiers.

The crisis triggered the tension between the European Union and Belarus, backed by Moscow.

The community bloc accuses Minsk of promoting this migratory flow in retaliation for the sanctions approved from Brussels against the Alexander Lukashenko regime after his contested re-election in 2020 and the subsequent crackdown on dissent.

With a harsh discourse against immigration, the Polish government approved the state of emergency at the border, deployed thousands of soldiers in the area and plans to build a wall between the two countries.

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