Poland boosts security as migrants gather on border

Layal Shakir
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Hundreds of migrants, including Kurds, have gathered on the Belarus border with Poland, facing a line of Polish border guards through a fence and hoping to make it across the frontier. 
 
Videos of migrants in Belarus making their way by foot towards the Polish border have been circulating on social media since early on Monday. The Polish Ministry of National Defence published a clip that shows hundreds of people sitting in yellow-dried grass near the village of Kuzinca, where the temperature is 7 degrees Celsius. 

“More than 12,000 people [soldiers] are on duty at the border,” the Polish minister of national defence  Mariusz Błaszczak said in a tweet. “We are prepared to defend the Polish border.”

Poland’s interior ministry said they prevented an attempt by the migrants to cross the border. 
 
Thousands of migrants have tried to gain entry to European Union nations from Belarus this summer. The EU accuses Minsk of pushing migrants to their borders in protest of sanctions imposed in response to a crackdown on dissent.
 
The migration crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border is “staged, directed, facilitated and supervised by Belarus authorities,” the Polish consulate in Erbil said in a tweet, using the Belarus flag emoji. Belarus reportedly closed its missions in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region this weekend. 
 
Poland has declared a state of emergency on their border and the parliament passed a law that grants border guards the power to push migrants back across the border. It’s part of an effort by Belarus’ neighbors to fortify their borders and stop the migration, but could breach Warsaw’s commitments under international law. 
 
Many Kurds from the Kurdistan Region are among the migrants making their way through Belarus in the hopes of reaching Western Europe. A video from the border published on Sunday shows a group of people wearing thick jackets and warm gloves. A woman screams angrily in Kurdish while her child cries, “Mom, please don’t do this to yourself.”
 

 
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) called the images from the border “deeply concerning.”

“We have repeatedly said using refugees & migrants to achieve political ends is unacceptable & must stop. It’s time to act now - we call on Belarus to avoid putting lives at risk,” it tweeted Monday. 

NATO on Monday accused Belarus of using migrants in a “hybrid attack” and said it was worried about the situation on the border with Poland. “NATO stands ready to further assist our allies, and maintain safety and security in the region,” it stated, AFP reported.

In an official statement, the Belarus Border Committee has blamed Poland for the crisis, stating that the committee is taking all necessary measures to “provide for the safety of people moving along the highway.”
 
In response, Poland has accused Belarus of using migrants to destabilize the European Union, according to AP.

Kurdish migrant Karwan Kamil told Rudaw late last month that around 300 Kurds from the Kurdistan Region have been stuck in the forest between Belarus and Poland for weeks, facing a terrible situation with no food or water. An 11-year-old child from Erbil died of cold and hunger, Kamil added while others are left with limbs reportedly broken in altercations with border guards and soldiers. 
 
This year, roughly 37,000 Iraqis have left the country, according to data from the Summit Foundation for Refugee and Displaced Affairs (Lutka).

On Monday evening, Poland's national defence ministry published footage showing migrants setting up tents on the border as they prepared to stay overnight.

Updated 7.30pm