2021 Belarus–European Union border crisis

The 2021 Belarus–European Union migrant crisis () is a migrant crisis caused by an increase of Middle Eastern and African migrants (mainly from Iraq) to Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland through those countries' borders with Belarus. The crisis was caused by bad relations between the European Union and Belarus, following the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests, the Ryanair Flight 4978 incident, and the attempted repatriation of Krystsina Tsimanouskaya.

Lithuanian officials said the crisis was a hybrid warfare by human trafficking of migrants to Lithuania and the rest of the European Union.

In Poland

On 12 July 2021, Polish President Andrzej Duda stated that Poland will provide assistance to Lithuania. In July 2021, Poland sent a humanitarian aid to Lithuania. Following the granting of shelter to an Olympic athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya and her husband, Poland also accused Belarus of organizing a hybrid warfare as the number of migrants crossing the Belarus–Poland border sharply increased multiple times when compared to the 2020 statistics.

As Belarus-Poland relations got worse further, migrants from Belarus began to enter Poland. On 6 August 2021, Poland reported 133 illegal crossings from Belarus over two days, which is more than the total number in the previous year, with the total number of illegal crossings to date being 552. On 9 August, Poland reported an additional 349 migrant arrivals over the weekend.

In early August 2021, a group of 32 Afghans and 41 Iraqi Kurds appeared on the border in the aftermath of the fall of Kabul (2021) and were denied entry to either country, resulting in lines of military personnel on each side isolating the encamped migrants. Their appearance follows an influx of thousands of mostly Middle Eastern migrants that had crossed the border from Belarus into Poland and other eastern EU members Latvia and Lithuania in the months leading up to the fall of Kabul, with the EU claiming that Belarus purposefully engineered the migration in response to union sanctions. While the Belarusian government denied this accusation, Poland called it a "hybrid attack" on the bloc and said the migrants should not be allowed entry because they are technically still in Belarus. After the migrants sought asylum assistance, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) summoned Poland and Latvia to provide them "food, water, clothing, adequate medical care and, if possible, temporary shelter" for three weeks, according to a statement from the court on 25 August, although neither country was ordered to allow the migrants past the border.

Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia released a joint statement, condemning the hybrid warfare of sending migrants over the borders. Since 18 August, 2021, Polish Armed Forces were sent to secure border with Belarus. As a response to the migrant crisis, Poland is building a wall in its border with Belarus.

References

2021 in Europe
21st century in Poland
August 2021 events
2021 European Union border crisis
History of international relations
History of Lithuania
Immigration
July 2021 events
November 2021 events
October 2021 events
September 2021 events