Belarus to close migrant camp near Polish border
Belarus is closing the Brzugi migrant camp near the Kuznica crossing point and the remaining migrants are being pushed towards the Polish border, the Polish Border Guard has reported.
The Brzugi camp lies close to the site that was the epicentre of clashes last year between Polish Border Guards and police and migrants desperate to get into Poland.
"We are receiving information that this hall is being closed. Belarusians are taking people from there and pushing them towards the Polish side," Lieutenant Anna Michalska, a Border Guard spokeswoman, told PAP.
She said that in recent days, illegal migrants from Iraq have been detained while trying to cross the Polish-Belarusian border. Michalska added that they were people who had reached Belarus last year and were being housed in the warehouse of the logistics centre at Bruzgi.
On Tuesday, the press service of the Belarusian State Border Committee announced that there were no more immigrants at the centre, and that it was no longer necessary.
It also reported that on the night of March 21-22, 98 immigrants departed from Minsk on a transport to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
"The remaining foreigners were, at their own request, deployed in hotels and sanatoriums, where they await the next outgoing journey," said the Committee in a statement.
On Tuesday, the Border Guard tweeted that over the past 24 hours as many as 134 people attempted to get to Poland illegally from Belarus, the highest figure since the start of the year.
