Poland has deployed almost 6,000 soldiers on its frontier with neighbouring Belarus following a surge in border crossings.
Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said that the new deployment came after a significant rise in military presence in recent days.
“Nearly 6,000 soldiers from the 16th, 18th and 12th divisions are serving on the Polish-Belarusian border,” Blaszczak tweeted on Tuesday.
“The soldiers provide support to the Border Guard by protecting the country’s border.”
His announcement came after the Polish Border Guard said that there had been 612 attempts to cross the border.
Amnesty International has accused Poland of illegally pushing back asylum-seekers into Belarus.
Poland Accused of Abandoning Migrants at Frontier
According to the group, Polish authorities pushed back a group of 32 Afghan asylum-seekers in late August.
The group included a 15-year-old girl.
It said that satellite imagery and photographs showed that the group was on the Polish side of the border on August 18 before being “moved overnight” to the Belarusian side.
“Amnesty International believes that this movement may be evidence of an illegal push-back, as it appears to have occurred while armed Polish border guards surrounded the refugees’ makeshift camp,” it said in a statement.
“Poland has been blocking this group of people at the border in deplorable conditions for weeks. Our analysis proves conclusively that their position has changed from Poland to Belarus overnight on 18 August and that they were therefore probably victims of unlawful forcible removal,” Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s Office to the European Institutions, said in a statement.
