Polish police forces used heavy fire against hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers on the country’s border with Belarus.
The police also fired water cannon and teargas at the migrants, of whom were children and women.
However, the migrants responded by throwing stones at the border guards.
The incident come a day after EU governments approved sanctions against the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, for allegedly engineering the crisis by allowing thousands of asylum-seekers from the Middle East to travel through Belarus to the border with Poland.
“The use of force [by Poland] is completely unjustifiable because there are legal procedures which should be used from the very beginning,” said Marta Szymanderska from Grupa Granica, a coalition of NGOs which are responding to the humanitarian crisis at the border.
“The actions of the Polish forces are not only illegal but also inhuman,” she added.
Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers are suffering extreme cold conditions across Europe and Eastern Mediterranean.
Two Syrian brothers were found shivering and barely conscious in the woods overnight.
They are brothers, aged 39 and 41 years.
Thousands of asylum seekers and migrants remain stranded on Poland-Belarus borders for several weeks. This came after Polish authorities refused to let them in.
