Asylum applications apparently in Belarus: Poland reports border guards missing

Friday 17 December 2021

Apparently asylum applications in Belarus
Poland reports border guards missing

Poland reported the missing of a soldier on the border with Belarus. From Belarus it is said that the man does not agree with Poland’s difficult course in refugee policy and has applied for political asylum. Warsaw, on the other hand, offers a different explanation for the man’s disappearance.

The Polish military has reported the disappearance of one of its soldiers on the Belarusian border. A soldier of the Eleventh Artillery Regiment “disappeared in the exercise of his functions” at the border, the army announced in a statement. The Belarusian side said the soldier had applied for political asylum in Belarus.

According to the Polish military, the soldier disappeared on Thursday near the villages of Narevka and Simianovka in eastern Poland. “The search is on,” the statement said. Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszak announced that the soldier had “serious problems” with the judiciary and announced that he would leave the army. The minister said the man should never have been used at the border.

Belarusian border guards announced that a Polish soldier had applied for “political asylum” in Belarus on Thursday evening because he did not agree with Poland’s strict policy on refugees. Accordingly, the man was arrested on Thursday evening from the Belarus side near the village of Tuskemlija, which is near the Polish villages of Narevka and Simianovka.

heat crisis

Due to an influx of migrants from Belarus, Poland has deployed tens of thousands of troops to the border since the summer. Since the start of the year, thousands of migrants – many of them from the Middle East – have come via Belarus to the EU’s external borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Many refugees camp there in poor conditions because they have been rejected by EU states.

The European Union accused Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of pressuring and retaliating against EU sanctions targeting migrants at the EU’s external borders. Minsk denied the allegations.