Poland has seen a rise in the number of cyber attacks on businesses, with media reports showing that it is one of Europe’s highest per capita targets.
Poland is a country in Europe. The country borders the Baltic Sea and Russia to the east, Belarus, Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the west, and Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia to the north. Poland has a population of over 38 million people.,
Image
On Tuesday, members of an Iraqi Kurdish family waited for the border guard patrol in a woodland on the Polish side of the Belarusian border. Credit… Getty Images/Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse
A stampede of Middle Eastern refugees attempting to enter the European Union via Belarus has fast evolved into a full-fledged border crisis that might potentially become a new East-West flashpoint.
According to Western officials, Belarusian President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko is retaliating for European Union sanctions against his country’s political repression by allowing asylum seekers from the Middle East to fly in and then funneling them to Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, all European Union countries.
In recent days, the number of migrants has risen from hundreds to thousands.
On Wednesday, the issue worsened as European Union officials set aside their own differences with Poland and vowed support for the country’s efforts to prevent migrants out. Along the Belarus border, this endeavor involves razor-wire barricades and tens of thousands of Polish troops.
President of the European Council, Charles Michel, joined Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in condemning what they described as a coordinated effort to use human beings as weapons.
“Poland is confronting a terrible situation that we take seriously,” Mr. Michel said at a press conference in Warsaw. “Poland should benefit from the solidarity and unity of the whole European Union.” “It’s a mixed assault, a nasty assault, a violent assault, and a disgusting assault.”
On Monday, top European Union officials are set to recommend further penalties against Belarus. Mr. Michel also discussed the prospect of placing penalties on airlines who fly passengers to Minsk, Belarus’s capital.
In a reversal of previous declarations by the European Union, Mr. Michel also said that the EU would investigate the prospect of funding a border wall.
Poland, which has sent 17,000 soldiers to stand watch, has even gone so far as to accuse Moscow of orchestrating the operation.
“Lukashenko is the perpetrator of the newest attack,” Mr. Morawiecki said during an emergency discussion in the Polish parliament on Tuesday. “However, this assault has a sponsor who can be located in Moscow, and this supporter is President Putin.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria V. Zakharova, branded Poland’s accusations that Russia was orchestrating the situation “beyond all reasonable borders and conventions.”
As the severe winter creeps in, tens of thousands of people have been left trapped on the border. According to Polish officials, eight individuals have died at the border thus far.
On Wednesday, a checkpoint near the Belarus border in Kuznica, Poland. Officials from the European Union claim that Belarusian President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko orchestrated a dispute over refugees. Credit… Getty Images/Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse
BRUSSELS, BELGIAN REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN REPU The European Union was almost torn apart by the migrant crisis of 2015, when millions of refugees flooded into Europe. Many members provided migrants sanctuary; others, like as Poland and Hungary, refused to participate.
Six years later, during a deadlock over refugees on the Polish-Belarusian border, EU officials assert that member states are unified in protecting the bloc’s external borders and that uncontrolled immigration is no longer a problem.
What makes this clash unique, according to the Europeans, is that it was wholly created by Belarus’s dictator, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, in reaction to European sanctions against his nation. They claim it is an act of hostility by Mr. Lukashenko, rather than a genuine migratory catastrophe.
The issue started in late August, when large groups of migrants, largely from the Middle East, began converging on the Polish, Latvian, and Lithuanian borders, escorted by Belarus. This movement has become far bigger, with at least 4,000 men, women, and children stuck in the severe weather between Belarus and its neighbors, without sufficient shelter or sanitation.
Poland and Lithuania also proclaimed states of emergency and strengthened their borders, while Belarusian troops have helped migrants in breaking through in certain circumstances. Journalists and humanitarian workers have been barred from the border areas, yet heartbreaking footage and photographs of refugees confronting barbed wire have been widely circulated, frequently by Belarus itself.
Mr. Lukashenko’s actions, according to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, are a “cynical power play,” and blackmail must not be allowed to prevail. Ursula von der Leyen, the chairwoman of the European Commission, met with President Biden in Washington and emerged to claim that the situation on the Belarus border is “a hybrid assault, not a migrant problem.”
The support for Poland is particularly apparent at a time when the European Union is at odds with the right-wing Polish government over the supremacy of European law over Polish law and constraints on the judiciary’s independence. In response to this standoff, Brussels has withheld billions of euros in payments meant to aid Warsaw’s economic recovery from the coronavirus outbreak.
Yet, in a sign of how serious Brussels considers the dispute with Belarus, European Council President Charles Michel paid a visit to Warsaw on Wednesday to meet with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and offer sympathy — and even some border cash.
Mr. Michel said, “Poland, which is suffering a catastrophic crisis, should benefit from the solidarity and togetherness of the whole European Union.”
However, the Europeans do not want to be regarded as disregarding children, women, and men who are trapped between soldiers and barbed wire, in frigid circumstances, without enough food, shelter, or sanitary facilities. A number of people have died.
As a result, Brussels is considering imposing further penalties on Belarusian authorities and airlines transporting refugees from the Middle East to Minsk. New sanctions, though, are unlikely to sway Mr. Lukashenko any more than past ones.
“This is a really significant situation for the European Union, not just for Poland,” said Piotr Buras, a European Council on Foreign Relations fellow based in Warsaw. “It’s a security issue that might worsen if Polish and Belarussian border guards start shooting, and it’s a terrible humanitarian catastrophe because Europe cannot allow people hungry and freezing on the border.”
Belarus’ President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko is now in Minsk, the country’s capital. Credit… Associated Press/Andrei Stasevich/BelTA
Officials from the European Union stated they were looking into plane travel to Minsk, Belarus’ capital, as possible proof that Belarus’ President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko was successfully organizing a flow of migrants into European Union nations.
The Minsk airport’s new timetable, starting Oct. 31, shows at least 47 planned flights each week from Middle Eastern destinations, up from no more than 23 on the previous schedule. A new daily route from Damascus on an Airbus A320 operated by Syrian airline Cham Wings is among the new flights.
For around $3,000, travel agents in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, where many of the migrants originate, have started promoting packages that include visas to Belarus and flights through Turkey or the United Arab Emirates.
Officials were monitoring aircraft from roughly two dozen countries, including Morocco, Syria, South Africa, Somalia, India, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Libya, and Yemen, according to Peter Stano, a spokesperson for the European Union’s executive arm. Ylva Johansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, said the EU was increasing “outreach with partner nations” to prevent migrants from entering Belarus in the first place.
In a tweet, she said, “Our first priority is to switch off the supply going into Minsk airport.”
Travel agents in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region claim to have agreements with agencies that charge over $1,300 per visa from Belarus diplomatic posts in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
Sana Jamal, a travel agency in the Kurdish city of Suleimaniyah, stated, “We have more business currently from individuals going for emigration than for holidays.”
This month, Karwan Jabbar, 30, and his wife, Razhan Muhammad, 28, were photographed on the rooftop of their home on the outskirts of Sulaimani, Iraq, with their two children, Arwan, right, and Kawan. The family intends to go to Belarus and will apply for a visa. Credit… The New York Times’ Laura Boushnak
Karwan Jabbar, 30, lives in a hamlet in Suleimaniya, Iraq’s Kurdistan region, with a job and a home. He doesn’t believe he has a future.
So Mr. Jabbar took out a loan and pledged his family’s property as security in order to acquire the $13,000 he claims he needs to bring his family to Belarus. He intends to go to the European Union from there.
Mr. Jabbar, who works at a car battery plant and earns $400 a month, said, “We are living in a country with no future.” There isn’t enough money to get by. And, he said, there is no dignity in life in Iraq for the poor.
Iraqi Kurds make up the main group of migrants flying into Belarus by the thousands with the hopes of advancing westward into the European Union. Many more people are Syrian.
Mr. Jabbar intends to make a second try. Two years ago, he visited Turkey. But, when he stood on the Aegean beach considering a sea passage to Greece, he remembered his pregnant wife and the risk, and he changed his mind.
He, his wife, and his two young children — a five-year-old and his almost two-year-old sibling — are now planning to go to Belarus as soon as his passport and visa are available.
If he made it to Europe, he claimed he would work as a cleaner “as long as it’s a profession that people appreciate.”
Abdullah al-Yousef, a 24-year-old Syrian from Idlib, came in Minsk aboard a flight from Lebanon earlier this week.
He remarked over the phone, “I’m getting ready to travel toward the border tomorrow morning.” “I’m not sure what’s in store for me.”
Mr. al-Yousef had a buddy who, on his fourth try to enter the EU, arrived at the border before him. He claims that his hotel in Belarus’ capital, Minsk, is packed with individuals from various countries, including Lebanon and Yemen, who are all waiting to cross the border.
Mr. al-Yousef, a stone mason, estimated the cost of his trip to be about $8,000. He intended to take a cab to the border and travel through with three other people using a GPS. If he survives, he will attempt to contact his wife and children.
“I’m hoping to make it to Germany,” he expressed his optimism. “I’d want to begin a new life.”
From Suleimaniya, Iraq, Sangar Khaleel provided reporting.
— Hwaida Saad and Jane Arraf
On Wednesday, Lithuanian troops were stationed near the Belarusian border at Kapciamiestis. Credit: Reuters/Ints Kalnins
Lithuania declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, including its border zone and detention facilities where thousands of migrants are being held, in response to the confrontation over refugees from Belarus.
The emergency provisions, which enable the mobilization of military personnel and the suspension of privacy and many other legal rights, were adopted by the Lithuanian Parliament on Tuesday and took effect at midnight.
The major influx of migrants from the Middle East attempting to enter the European Union via Belarus has been directed toward Poland, which has deployed hundreds of soldiers along its border with Belarus. However, Lithuania, which is also a member of the European Union, has experienced a significant rise of unlawful crossings in recent days.
Officials from Poland and the European Union claim Belarus’ dictatorial leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, is coordinating the human tide, which they describe as a retaliatory strike on the union. Poland and Lithuania have taken in some of Mr. Lukashenko’s most outspoken critics, and the European Union has slapped sanctions on Belarus, which he wants repealed.
Last year, relations between Europe and Belarus deteriorated dramatically when President Lukashenko won an improbable landslide win in an election largely seen as fraudulent and launched a violent assault on his opponents.
The emergency measures exacerbated a situation along the eastern border of the European Union — and also NATO — with Belarus, a staunch political and military ally of Russia.
After more than 100 migrants crossed the Belarus-Lithuania border this summer, the Lithuanian government increased attempts to stem the flow of individuals it said were being used as “hybrid weapons” against the European Union.
The authorities erected a barrier, and Lithuanian parliament enacted a bill expediting asylum proceedings in order to process and deport refugees more quickly, as well as authorizing the detention of migrants for up to six months without a judicial order.
However, the state of emergency that went into force on Wednesday is the most comprehensive since the country’s independence in 1990.
Migrants in Lithuania are now prohibited from communicating with anybody in writing or by phone, with the exception of contacting the country’s authorities. Only inhabitants and property owners are permitted within three miles of the border, and vehicle mobility is prohibited inside that zone.
“In our independent state’s tradition, a state of emergency has never been utilized,” Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte stated last week, emphasizing the gravity of the issue. She said that the decision to prolong the measures will be reconsidered in a month’s time.
— Marc Santora and Andrew Higgins
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel visits Berlin on Wednesday. Credit… Associated Press/Markus Schreiber
MOSCOW, Russia — Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel contacted Russian President Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday, asking him to pressure Belarus to end its “inhuman and irresponsible” activities near the Polish border, according to her spokeswoman.
According to the Kremlin, Mr. Putin assured Ms. Merkel that there was nothing he could do.
According to a Kremlin statement summarizing Ms. Merkel’s phone contact, “the Russian president recommended that the difficulties that have arisen be resolved directly by representatives of European Union nations with Minsk,” Belarus’ capital.
The public bravado between Berlin and Moscow over Ms. Merkel’s phone talk to Mr. Putin revealed how Russia continues to defend Belarusian strongman Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, who ruthlessly suppressed an uprising against him last year.
The Kremlin increased its ally’s influence in the situation by pressing the West to speak directly to Mr. Lukashenko about the migrant problem, which European officials claim was orchestrated by Mr. Lukashenko to put pressure on Europe.
“Belarus has repeatedly recommended having conversations, negotiating, and addressing these problems on the basis of international law at the current stage at the borders,” Russia’s foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow alongside his Belarusian colleague.
Two nuclear-capable Russian Tu-22M3 long-range bombers flew over Belarus’s borders with Poland and Lithuania on Wednesday in another display of solidarity. Given “the growing scenario in the air as well as on the ground,” Belarus’ defense ministry said an allied air patrol of the country’s western borders will now be a regular occurrence.
Belarusian authorities, on the other hand, insisted that they were not to blame for the issue. Vladimir Makei, the country’s foreign minister, chastised Poland for sending tens of thousands of troops “against wailing women and children and refusing to let them enter Europe.”
Mr. Makei, speaking beside Mr. Lavrov, added, “This is a breach of all conventions.” “The allegations that Belarus is orchestrating these flows are completely false.”
In 2015, migrants trying to cross the border from Serbia to Hungary. Credit… The New York Times’ Mauricio Lima
National boundaries, and those attempting to cross them, have been used as political weapons far too frequently. And in Europe, the last time it occurred is still fresh in people’s minds.
More than a million migrants flooded into Europe in 2015, escaping war and violence in the Middle East and Africa, prompting a response from anti-immigrant, nationalist groups opposed to what they saw as an invasion of Islam. They screamed against the European Union, warning that welcoming migrants in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and others may lead to an endless migrant influx.
However, 2021 is not the same as 2015. While the impasse on the Belarus-Poland border brings up memories of what occurred six years ago, the circumstances are vastly different.
To begin with, Western authorities claim that an authoritarian leader, Belarus’ President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, is orchestrating the present influx of Middle Eastern migrants into the European Union in order to seek retribution for EU sanctions.
Many of the migrants in 2015 were escaping turmoil and civil war, aided by unscrupulous traffickers in some instances and crossing large distances in frail boats and on foot. However, many of the migrants who crossed the Polish border on airliners arrived in Belarus after paying up to $3,000 for Belarus visas and flights through Turkey or the United Arab Emirates.
The refugees’ arrival at Poland’s eastern border is especially incendiary for the country’s ruling, far-right Law and Justice party, which came to office in 2015, at the height of Europe’s migrant crisis, on a campaign that sparked chants of “Poland for Poles.”
Despite the fact that the number of migrants engaged is minor in comparison to the 2015 wave, Polish authorities are portraying the issue as a full-fledged catastrophe and a threat to national sovereignty. The anti-immigrant mentality of the party is reminiscent of Europe’s past migration crises.
In 2015, Denmark’s then-new right-wing government ran ads in Lebanese newspapers advising refugees not to enter and highlighting that the government had tightened immigration regulations.
Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s far-right National Front party, which has since been renamed the National Rally, has claimed that migrants bring dirt, crime, poverty, and Islamic terrorism.
Hungary has constructed a razor-wire barrier along its southern border with Serbia to attempt to stem the flow of migrants passing through the Balkans. Two years later, on the nation’s southern border, the government started keeping asylum seekers in guarded and fenced camps. Human rights activists labeled it a flagrant violation of international law.
In exchange for funding, the European Union reached an agreement with Turkey to accommodate millions of refugees rather than allowing them to go on to Europe. But, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not receive what he wants from the EU, he has hinted that if he does not get what he wants, he would unleash a fresh migrant catastrophe on Europe.
After travelling through the forest from the border with Belarus in October, a family of Kurdish asylum seekers from Iraq with their ailing kid received support from a charity in Poland. Credit… The New York Times’ Maciek Nabrdalik
On October 6, 2021, the original narrative was published.
ALONG POLAND’S EASTERN BORDER — The father had been walking in circles in the rain-soaked Polish woodland, carrying his ailing daughter, who had become delirious after three days without food or drink as the temperature dropped below freezing. He was drenched, shivering, and faced a difficult decision.
His 2-year-old daughter suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy. He’d covered her in a light coat to keep her warm, but she needed medical help right now. The father, an Iraqi Kurd named Karwan, had taken his family over the Belarusian border, but they were now in a woodland region guarded by Polish troops and border guards.
The father’s option was pitiful: getting medical treatment would mean returning to Belarus and putting a stop to his family’s perilous trek to Europe.
“I can call an ambulance for you, but border guards will come with it,” Piotr Bystrianin, a Polish activist who came to assist the family, informed them. He’d spotted them after hours of searching in the dark, alerted to their location by a mobile locator pin.
Karwan’s family had become caught up in a geopolitical conflict between Belarus and Poland, which had turned into a man-made humanitarian crisis for Europe. According to Polish authorities, at least five migrants who crossed illegally into Poland have perished in recent weeks, some from cold and fatigue, while three almost drowned in a Polish wetland.
“As the weather worsens, many more people will perish,” Mr. Bystrianin said. “Our government handles these individuals as if they are criminals who must be imprisoned, as if they aren’t human beings but trash to be discarded.” What is the plan if not to murder people?
Poland is a country in Central Europe. It has a population of 38 million people and its capital city is Warsaw. Reference: poland president.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Poland a safe country?
A: Poland is a safe country, but it does have its share of problems. There are some areas that can be unsafe at night and in certain parts of the capital city. I would recommend visiting only during the daytime hours when youre not going to be out too late or do anything dangerous.
Why is Poland such a poor country?
A: Poland is not a poor country. Its just very low on the income scale, due to its history of being occupied by many different countries in recent years. This has meant that development was quite slow and it has had fewer resources available than other developed nations.
What is Poland famous for?
A: Poland is a country in Central Europe. They are famous for their polish cuisine, despite most of it being based on meat and potatoes.
Related Tags
- poland currency
- poland flag
- poland people
- poland news
- poland time
