In the second half of 2021, a systematic effort by the Belarusian government created a crisis on the EU’s eastern border: the authorities in Minsk began bringing would-be migrants into Belarus, then transporting them to the frontier with Poland and the Baltic states. Although Russia’s subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine drew attention away from the manufactured problem, the situation has only gotten worse. In 2024 alone, 17,000 people entered the EU illegally through Belarus — three times more than in the year before.
Refugees are undeterred by the physical obstacles — metal fences topped with barbed wire — which Lithuania and Poland erected in 2022 (with Latvia planning to finish its own by the end of this year). Numerous accounts have been collected showing that Belarusian border guards themselves transported migrants all the way up to the barriers, and when a similar crisis broke out on the Russian-Finnish border in 2023,
[…]
Russia’s FSB had played the leading role in creating that copycat scheme. Now, a former Belarusian border guard tells […] how he escorted migrants to the border, while an Iranian refugee described how he managed to cross into the EU in 2023 with the help of the Belarusian authorities.
We were bound by a separate set of instructions signed by Alexander Lukashenko. For instance, it said that upon spotting a suspicious person in the border zone, we had to fire two warning shots into the air and a third directly at the person. – A former conscript of the Belarusian Border Service.
The officers started shouting slogans about Lithuanian enemies and instructing us on how we would move migrants across the border into Lithuania. – A former conscript of the Belarusian Border Service.
They [the Belarusian border guards] warned us: if you go back to Belarus, they’ll beat you up. --* M., an Iranian refugee*
[…]
Strawman of what? I’m literally arguing the position described in a post above.
I can’t describe “plenty” of countries in EU zone as being “fine”. You barely hold the far rights from being voted in.
Polish soldiers are in their right to defend the border in whatever means necessary.
Me? I’m not Polish. Also, PiS is piss but we already seen them in action, they are predictable and not pro-russian, what can’t be said about other right wing parties (hell, even Poland has Konfederacia which is 10 times worse).
You said “instead of following legal procedures” as if there were any legal procedures they could actually take. These people are forcing their way across the border because the other option is them fucking dying.
I never said “in the EU.” Countries like Austria, Sweden and Lithuania have got nothing on Malaysia, Spain or Ireland (all thriving democracies with massive immigrant populations), and the fact that Poland is even in this conversation despite its migrant population being comparable to countries less than ten times its size is nothing short of comical.
They, in fact, do not. That’s literally the point of international law; torturing and assaulting asylum seekers is both illegal and morally abhorrent.
If you’re from a European country, odds are you’re already facing down a rising far-right. Racing to the bottom on who can be worse to their fellow human beings is not how defeat the far right, because the far-right will always win that race.
Removed by mod
If there are no ways for them to get into EU legally, then they shouldn’t get into EU. I don’t buy the “need” to go to EU specifically, there are plenty of countries in the world you can end up in that aren’t war-torn, where you’ll be fine.
Ireland has like 10 times less illegal immigrants than in other EU countries, besides, who generally emigrate to Ireland? Thats Eastern Europe.
Oh no, the international law was broken. Call the international police 😣
You literally write this under article that explains this whole thing to be russian plot. Far-right surge isn’t a random event either, it’s part of russian attack on EU & USA. You don’t win the far right by falling flat to russian traps.
This was explained in the comment you replied to by calling the commenter an idiot. Either you’re illiterate and shouldn’t be on the internet or you’re playing dumb. This conversation is over.