According to information received from Polish border guards, a group of migrants stranded on the Polish-Belarusian border for several weeks tried to break the border barrier.
The border agency announced on Twitter on Wednesday and posted a video, near the village of Usnarz Gorny, of six men climbing tree branches over a barbed wire fence.
Refugees also threw stones at border guards and soldiers. Some were armed with axes and tongs.
Border guards fired tear gas shells to stop the migrants. Sixteen of them eventually entered Polish territory by force, but were pushed back to the other side of the border.
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The government in Warsaw accused the Belarusian ruler, Alexander Lukashenko (67), of bringing refugees from troubled areas to the EU’s outer border in an organized manner.
Lukashenko announced in late May that Minsk would no longer prevent migrants from continuing to travel to the European Union in response to tighter Western sanctions against the former Soviet republic.
The fate of this group of migrants who had been camping on the Belarusian side of the border in a forest near Usnerz Gorny since August deeply shook the Polish public.
The information provided by the border guards cannot be independently verified, as Poland has declared a state of emergency in the border area. Journalists and assistants are not allowed inside.
