Poland Erects Fence On Border With Belarus To Keep Migrants Out

Soldiers of the Polish army started building a fence at the border with Belarus on Wednesday afternoon, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

Photo Insert: A sign at the Poland-Belarus Border

Three kilometers of fence has already been constructed, Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak wrote on Twitter, as the country tries to stop the influx of migrants illegally crossing the border, which is also a European Union (EU) external border.

Since the beginning of August, there have been more than 3,000 attempted border crossings, the Polish border guard said on Thursday. According to the PAP news agency, the first section of the 2.5-meter-high barrier is being built near the village of Zubrzyca Wielka, about 60 kilometers east of Bialystok.

The priority is to secure the sections of the border that run over land - a total of about 190 kilometers. Warsaw later plans to erect the fence where the Bug river separates the two countries. Barbed wire was already laid along 130 kilometers in July.

Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko had announced in late May that Minsk would no longer prevent migrants from traveling on to the EU, in response to tougher Western sanctions on the former Soviet republic.

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