warsaw, poland
Reuters
—
Border guards said Friday that more than 180 migrants entered Poland through tunnels hidden in forests on the border with Belarus.
About 130 of them were detained in Poland after the passage was discovered on Thursday, the Polish border guard said in a statement, while the rest were still at large.
The agency released a video of the tunnel, dug through roots and bare ground and supported by wooden pillars and metal bars, but only 1.5 meters (5 feet) high, not high enough for most people to pass through without squatting.
European Union member Poland has been grappling with a migrant crisis on its border with Belarus since 2021.
The government accused Belarus and Minsk’s ally Moscow of plotting to destabilize Poland by encouraging people, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, to cross the border.
Belarus and Russia have repeatedly dismissed these charges.
According to the Border Guard, this tunnel is the fourth discovered this year in the western region of Podlaski.
Guards added that they also detained a 69-year-old Polish national and a 49-year-old Lithuanian national who had arrived to pick up the migrants.
“The entrance hidden in the forest was located about 50 meters (from the border fence) on the Belarusian side of the border, and the exit was about 10 meters from the fence on the Polish side,” the border guard said.
Officers used an electronic system to keep track of the number of people passing by, and the military and police also joined in the search for missing migrants.
Poland began construction work on a 180-kilometer (110-mile) border fence in 2022.
