Migrant crisis on Belarus-Poland border caused by EU’s failure to uphold ‘European values’ – Kremlin
The migrant crisis on the border of Belarus and Poland is threatening to become a humanitarian catastrophe, and the European Union’s handling of it shows that it has abandoned its “European values,” the Kremlin has claimed.
Talking to the press, spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the situation on the frontier “extremely tense,” slamming the EU countries for treating the refugees passing from Belarus to Poland as somehow different from previous migrants.
“There is a looming humanitarian catastrophe on the back of the unwillingness of fellow Europeans to show commitment to their European values,” he said.
According to Peskov, EU nations have preached their values to other countries, “talking about the highest ideals of humanism,” but this time, there seems to be “no such desire.”
Peskov’s comments come as thousands of would-be asylum seekers sit in no man’s land between Belarus and Poland, hoping to be allowed to cross into the EU. The current crisis erupted after a column of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa, hoping to be granted asylum by Warsaw, arrived at the Belarus-Poland border on Monday. They are currently camped between the two countries.
Also on rt.com UN condemns use of asylum seekers as ‘political pawns’The crisis began in June, when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that his country would no longer be holding back migrants seeking to reach the EU through its territory, in response to Brussels imposing sanctions on Minsk over alleged human rights violations. Since the beginning of 2021, more than 23,000 people have tried to cross the Polish-Belarusian border, leading Warsaw to declare a state of emergency.
Brussels has accused Minsk of “weaponizing” human beings by arranging flights from troubled nations and bussing migrants to the border as a means of destabilizing the EU.
Earlier this week, the UN expressed concern over the deteriorating situation, noting that “human beings should never be used as political pawns.”
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