Poland ready to help people on Belarusian side of border
The Polish prime minister has declared that Poland is ready to offer assistance to all people who have been trapped on the Belarusian side of the Polish-Belarusian border, but added that this must be approved by Belarus.
"We have prepared food, medicines, blankets and tents for the people… but we need the consent of the Belarusian authorities in order to deliver our aid," Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided that Poland must provide food, clothing, medical care and, if possible, temporary shelter to the group of migrants currently stranded on the Polish-Belarusian border.
The ECHR explained that "at the same time, that this measure should not be understood as requiring that Poland or Latvia let the applicants enter their territories".
"When a person enters Poland's territory, all procedures are being conducted in a professional and humanitarian way," Morawiecki said when asked to make a comment regarding the ECHR statement.
"That is why all people who managed to enter Poland have been taken care of in special, closed centres," he said and declared that they had been offered 'all kinds of assistance.'
"Other people are on the territory of Belarus, they have been invited by Belarus and granted Belarusian visas," he said, adding that both Belarusian and Iraqi tourist agencies had offered them specific proposals.
"It is the Belarusian state which should take care of them in this situation," the prime minister stated, adding that they were invited by the Belarusian regime "to destabilise the situation in Poland and the European Union."
He repeated that Poland was ready to help these people, and that a humanitarian convoy was waiting for Belarus to approve its entrance into that country.
