Belarus dictator Lukashenko rages at EU 'b*****ds' over migrant chaos and accuses Poland of 'conducting war' on their border after discussing rising tensions with Putin

• e-mail

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has angrily described the EU as 'b*****ds' and accused Warsaw of 'conducting war' on migrants trying to illegally enter Poland from Belarus.

Lukashenko also blamed Europe and the US for the unprecedented wave of migrants attempting to cross the border after expressing 'special concern' over the deployment of Polish troops near the border with his ally Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

The EU has accused Lukashenko's regime of using migrants as pawns in a 'hybrid war' against the bloc in retaliation for imposing sanctions on the authoritarian state. 

The EU also accused Belarus of shipping migrants to the border under 'false pretences' and encouraging them to enter the bloc illegally.   

But Lukashenko threw the allegation of a 'hybrid war' back at the EU, pointing at its sanctions against Belarus, adding: 'And you, b*****ds, madmen want me to protect you from migrants.'

Lukashenko also accused Poland starting a war and said: 'To conduct a war with these unfortunate people on the border of Poland with Belarus and move forward columns of tanks - it's clear this is either a training exercise or it's blackmail. 

'We will calmly stand up to this.' 

'I am afraid that this confrontation at the border because of migrants might lead to an active phase. These are grounds for provocations. All provocations are possible,' Lukashenko said, accusing Poland's military of flying its helicopters low at the border, frightening the migrants.    

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Tuesday accused Putin of orchestrating the unprecedented wave of migrants at the border and threatening to destabalise the European Union.

'This attack which Lukashenko is conducting has its mastermind in Moscow, the mastermind is President Putin,' Morawiecki told an emergency session of the Polish parliament.       

Morawiecki's comments come after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier today that the EU should pay Alexander Lukashenko to help end a migrant crisis on Poland's border that he is accused of creating.

Lavrov suggested that Europe should pay to Belarus to take the migrants back - pointing out that it also pays Turkey to take back migrants turned away from the Greek border.

But Peter Stano, a spokesman for the EU Commission, accused Lukashenko of engaging in an 'inhuman and gangster-style' plot to lure vulnerable people to his country where they are 'pushed to the border and forced to make an illegal entry into the European Union' via Poland.

Once at the border the migrants become stuck, blocked from going further by Polish guards but also prevented from returning to Belarus. There are now thought to be 2,000 people - many of them young men but also women, elderly people and children - trapped in this freezing no-man's land with little food or water. At least 10 have died. 

European leaders accuse Lukashenko of trying to destabilise the bloc as revenge for them backing pro-democracy protests against his rule and sanctioning his regime for hijacking a Ryanair plane to arrest a journalist.   

The crisis has been simmering for months but ramped up on Monday as around 1,000 migrants suddenly arrived at the border and attempted to cross, some using shovels and trees to destroy a barbed wire fence. 

Belarus, with the backing of Moscow, denies the claims and says the people are legitimate asylum seekers.   

Poland has accused Belarus of 'attacking' its border and the EU using migrants as a weapon, a day after thousands tried to storm across the border using trees as battering rams (pictured)

There are now thought to be 2,000 migrants trapped at the border - unable to enter Poland but also blocked from getting back into Belarus in freezing cold conditions with little water or food

Poland says it has an 'obligation' to block the migrants and defend the EU's border, while accusing Belarus of 'attacks' using desperate migrants as its weapon

Poland says it has an 'obligation' to defend the EU's eastern border by blocking the migrants, accusing Alexander Lukashenko of preventing them from returning to Belarus (pictured, Polish guards reinforce the border fence)

Polish guards are pictured reinforcing the border with Belarus on Tuesday, in anticipation of another attempt to cross by thousands of people gathered on the Belarusian side

Polish special services troops use a digger to reinforce border defences today as they attempt to stop thousands of migrants crossing over from Belarus

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki visited the border zone on Tuesday, where thousands of troops are now deployed in an attempt to stop the migrants from crossing

Mr Morawiecki (pictured alongside defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak) has said it is Poland's 'obligation' as a member of the EU to keep migrants from entering the bloc, and accused Belarus of an 'attack'

Polish troops and police stand guard at the border zone today, hours after thousands of migrants tried to cross in a major escalation of a crisis that has been brewing for months

A migrant on the Belarusian side of the border uses an axe to hack a branch off a tree to burn on a campfire, with temperatures in the region dropping below freezing overnight

Thousands of migrants are now camped along the border, having been blocked from getting into the EU and barred from returning back into Belarus

Poland accuses Belarus of manufacturing the crisis by luring in migrants with promises of a passage into Europe, before marching them to the border and dumping them there with no path forwards or backwards (pictured, camps on the border) 

Poland's president said the migrants a 'mostly' young men, though images also showed a large number of women and children among crowds at the border

Two women speak to a young girl at a camp close to Poland's border with Belarus after failing to cross on Monday

Migrants have resorted to camping in the woods near the Polish border with little access to food or water, where they have been burning wood to keep warm

Temperatures have been falling below freezing in the border region overnight, with at least 10 migrants having died in recent weeks - many of them from hypothermia

'We are not seeking a fight,' Lukashenko told the state news agency Belta. 'I am not a madman, I understand perfectly well where it can lead. But we will not kneel.'

Poland has reacted angrily, with President Andrzej Duda accusing Lukashenko of 'attacking' the border and the EU in an 'unparallelled manner' - saying his country has an obligation as an EU member to turn the migrants back.   

Poland has rushed some 10,000 troops and guards to the area in anticipation of another mass attempt to cross, while accusing Belarusian soldiers of trying to prompt a confrontation by firing blank ammunition. 

The Belarusian Defense Ministry summoned the Polish military attache to protest what it called 'unfounded and unlawful Polish allegations' against the Belarusian military at the border. 

It also voiced concern about the buildup of Polish troops there, saying Warsaw did not notify or invite Belarusian observers per international rules for activity involving more than 6,000 troops. 

Video filmed today by one of the migrants captured the sound of gunfire at the border, which Belarus insisted had come from the Polish side.

But Poland denied this, saying the Belarusians had been 'simulating dangerous events' in an attempt to destabilise the situation further. 

On Tuesday, Poland reinforced its border with more riot police, a day after groups of migrants tried to storm through a razor-wire fence on the eastern frontier where thousands have camped on the Belarusian side in the tense standoff.   

Separately, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has vowed to keep blocking the migrants while warning that the 'security of the entire EU is at stake'. 

He was backed by German interior minister Horst Seehofer who said the migrants are being used as part of a 'nasty tactic' to 'destabilise the EU and especially Germany'. 

'This hybrid attack of Lukashenko's regime is aimed at all of us. We will not be intimidated and will defend peace in Europe with our partners from NATO and EU,' Mr Morawiecki tweeted. 

'It is a very nasty tactic,' he told German newspaper Bild. 'A political tactic that must be stopped.' 

Mr Seehofer also praised the actions of Polish border guards, saying they have acted 'absolutely correctly' in using tear gas and shields to force the migrants back.  

Meanwhile, the EU said it is pressing more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries to prevent their nationals leaving on flights bound for Belarus that it believes are being used to transport migrants.  

The EU has already successfully leaned on Iraq to halt flights from Baghdad to Minsk, and is now in talks with Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Egypt, Georgia, Guinea, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey.

It said another 20 countries, including the likes of Iran, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Russia, Somalia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Yemen are being monitored as 'potential' sources of migrants.  

Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas was to visit several of those countries to raise awareness of Minsk's migration gambit and the risks to people tempted to take it.

Russia - Lukashenko's strongest ally - was being watched 'very carefully', spokesman Stano added.

'In Russia, we are observing the situation for its potential to manipulate people or instrumentalise migration, or for its potential for abuse from the Lukashenko regime,' he said.

Stano added that the EU was working towards a fifth set of sanctions on Lukashenko's regime, saying: 'We are trying to explore all the possible means we have at our disposal to deal with the situation.'

Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that the EU was in particular looking how it might sanction airlines deemed to be 'active in human trafficking' by flying migrants to Belarus.

The EU on Tuesday suspended an agreement under which Belarus officials used to be able to get EU visas more easily, adopting a Commission proposal announced in September as part of its raft of restrictions on Lukashenko's regime.  

A Polish soldier carries reels of barbed wire to the border to reinforce a fence that came under attack on Monday from crowds of migrants, some armed with chopped-down trees used as battering rams

Migrants gather wood to burn on fires in order to keep warm as they wait at the border between Poland and Belarus

Men are seen cutting down wood to make fires at migrant camps along the Poland-Belarus border on Tuesday

Migrants say they have been stopped going back into Belarus by soldiers but cannot get into Poland, leaving them trapped

Migrants on the Belarusian-Polish border, where several thousand are now trapped with little food or water

Thousands of migrants have spent a freezing cold night camped on the border between Poland and Belarus, a day after they tried to force their way across but were blocked

Thousands of migrants, many of them Kurds fleeing violence in the Middle East inlcuding families and pregnant women, are now trapped on the border as Belarus blocks them from reentering its territory and Poland stops them going any further 

Around 1,000 migrants are now trapped in woods near the Polish border in freezing conditions with little water or food and no route forwards into Europe or backwards into Belarus

Migrants are seen camped close to the fence that Polish border guards have erected to keep them out of the EU

Morning in one of the migrant camps, as people attempt to keep warm around a fire after temperatures dropped to -2C

Poland has been accusing Belarus of trying to force migrants across its border for months, but the crisis ratcheted up this week with the sudden arrival of around 1,000 people including women and children

A sign in Polish that says 'state border crossing is forbidden' lies among barbed wire at the border with Belarus

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen demanded that Belarus 'must stop putting people's lives at risk.'

She accused Lukashenko of using migrants ' for political purposes' and vowed the move would not see Brussels cave in.

'I have spoken to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš to express the EU's solidarity and discuss with them the measures the EU can take to support them in their efforts to deal with this crisis.

'I am calling on Member States to finally approve the extended sanctions regime on the Belarusian authorities responsible for this hybrid attack.'

Lawmakers in Lithuania voted to declare a state of emergency for a month along its border with Belarus, restricting the movement of vehicles and banning all entry, except for residents, in a zone reaching 5 kilometers (3 miles) inland. 

The emergency measures will allow border guards to use 'mental coercion' and 'proportional physical violence' to prevent the migrants from entering Lithuania. Guards will be able to check vehicles and people, and gatherings will also be banned. It also applies to accommodations for migrants in the capital of Vilnius and elsewhere.

At least 170 migrants were stopped from entering Lithuania on Tuesday.

German interior minister demanded stronger action amid concerns that the would-be asylum seekers aim to head to Germany if they gain access to the EU.

'We must help the Polish government secure their external border,' said the minister.

'This would actually be the task of the European Commission. I'm now appealing to them to take action.'

Poland has sent 12,000 soldiers to stop hundreds of would-be asylum seekers entering its territory.

'Interior ministry forces and soldiers managed to stop the first mass attempt to breach the border,' said the country's defence ministry.

'Migrants have set up a camp in the Kuznica region. They are constantly guarded by Belarusian services.'

Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller estimated 3,000 to 4,000 migrants were massing near the border.

'We expect that there may be an escalation of this type of action on the Polish border in the near future, which will be of an armed nature,' he warned.

'Nato stands ready to further assist our allies and maintain safety and security in the region,' said a spokesman for the Alliance. 

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Monday called on member states to impose new sanctions against Belarus and said the use 'of migrants for political purposes is unacceptable'. She added that the EU would also look at how to sanction 'third-country airlines' that bring migrants to Belarus.  

Warsaw called Monday's action 'an invasion' and declared it was sending 12,000 troops to reinforce 10,000 already stationed along the frontier.  

German interior minister Horst Seehofer (left) has accused Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko (right) of manufacturing the crisis as part of a 'nasty tactic' designed at 'destabilising the EU' 

A migrant was seen hacking at the barbed wire barrier with a spade while a Polish guard sprayed him with pepper spray

Small children are held up by desperate migrants along with frontier faced down by Polish forces

A surge of 'illegal immigrants' preparing to cross the border from dictatorship Belarus into NATO-EU state Poland has sparked fears of a major crisis in the region (pictured: immigrants making their way along the highway to Poland)

A helicopter flies low overhead as thousands of migrants mass on the Polish border with Belarus on Monday

One of the migrants takes a pair of pliers to the barbed wire fence at the Polish border with Belarus on Monday

These extraordinary scenes are the most serious yet in a dispute that has seen the West accuse Belarusian autocrat Alexander Lukashenko of 'weaponising' immigration and engaging in a 'hybrid war'

Polish forces are seen standing guard at the border to block the passage of migrants from Belarus

Videos today show an enormous procession of migrants near the Bruzgi-Kuznitsa frontier checkpoint, on a highway that links Belarus to Poland. Migrants have been gathered in the forests close to the checkpoint for weeks (countries in blue are part of the EU - Lithuania and Latvia have also reported a major influx of migrants in recent months from Belarus)

The U.S. State Department also called for Belarus to stop 'orchestrating' an influx of migrants at the Polish border, blaming strongman Lukashenko for the 'coercion of vulnerable people.'   

Poland's ambassador to the UN Krzysztof Szczerski said: 'Due to the situation on the eastern border of Poland, I am in contact with the ambassadors of the USA, Great Britain, France, Ireland and Estonia to the United Nations in New York - members of the Security Council.'

The pledge comes as deputy head of Poland's Interior Ministry said: 'At the moment, a regular battle is taking place near Kuźnice.

'The Border Guard, the Police and the Polish Army are defending our border against the attack of migrants inspired and prepared by Lukashenko.'

Poland said it had withstood the first attempts on Monday by the migrants to force their way across the border, but that thousands more were on their way. 

'We expect that in the coming hours attacks on our border will be renewed by groups of several hundred people,' Pawel Soloch, the head of Poland's National Security Bureau, told reporters. 

The Polish Border Guard announced that as of 0600 GMT on Tuesday the crossing at Kuznica, near the site where migrants tried to force their way through, would be closed.

'We have three border crossings with Belarus,' Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik told private broadcaster Polsat News. 'The closure of one of them can... be treated as a kind of economic sanction.'

Poland's Secret Service minister Stanislaw Zaryn said: 'Migrants, and subsequent transports arrive in Belarus from Arab countries. - Polish borders are attacked in an organized manner, we will strengthen forces,' he said.

The former President of the European Community has now called upon NATO to help with the mounting crisis on Poland's border with Belarus.

Donald Tusk said Poland should consider triggering Article 4 of the Nato treaty, under which all member states are obliged to meet to examine issues of mutual concern including threats to territorial integrity, political independence or security.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Tusk who is the leader of Poland's main opposition party Platforma Obywatelska said he was 'very concerned about what is happening today and what will probably happen in the hours to come on our eastern border.'

He added: 'Our relations with our eastern neighbour are about to deteriorate even further.

'What is most important is perhaps to consider whether we should trigger Nato's Article 4 if our border is under direct threat from physical pressure with Belarusian involvement, and I mean Belarusian state services.'

Charities say the migrants face gruelling conditions while trying to cross the border from Belarus, enduring freezing weather and a lack of food, water and medical attention.  

Poland said seven migrants had been found dead on its side of the border, with reports of more deaths in Belarus.

Humanitarian groups accuse Poland's ruling nationalists of violating the international right to asylum by pushing migrants back into Belarus instead of accepting their applications for protection. Poland says its actions are legal.

There are more than a thousand people in the group of refugees near the border with Poland, including many women and children, reported RIA Novosti after speaking with Belarusian border guards.

The border guards said that migrants 'do not pose a threat yet,' but their statements came amid reports that Lukashenko was sending heavily armed riot police towards the border.

'At the moment, a large group of refugees with belongings are moving along the road to the border with Poland,' said the Belarusian border committee in a statement.

A grotesque game of human ping-pong: IAN BIRRELL reveals how Belarus has flown in thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa – then sent them into Poland en route to a new life in the West... But the Poles don't want them

By IAN BIRRELL IN BIALOWIEZA FOREST, POLAND FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY 

We met deep inside Europe's last remaining primeval forest, where bison and wolves roam beneath ancient towering oaks. 'I am an IT professional and I had a good life,' Hussan told me. 'But now I am standing in the woods with bare feet and dirty hands.'

Hussan, 41, lived happily in the Syrian city of Homs before it was shattered by bombs, bullets and feuding militia, forcing him to flee to Turkey.

Tears flowed down his face when I asked about his family, then he spoke in English of his dream to find sanctuary in Britain. Instead, he finds himself in Bialowieza Forest, a fearful refugee hiding from Polish security forces seeking to send him back over the nearby border to Belarus.

For this is the latest front line in Europe's migration crisis. Hussan is just one of many bedraggled pawns in a cruel global power game being played by Belarus's sinister dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who has 'weaponised' migration by luring people from the Middle East and Africa to his country, then despatching them to next-door EU nations.

This policy is designed to stoke divisions and destabilise the EU in retaliation for sanctions imposed after the autocrat sparked world outcry by forcing a Ryanair passenger jet carrying an opposition activist to divert to the Belarusian capital Minsk, where he was seized and then paraded on television.

Pictured: Hussan, 41, from Syria and his pregnant wife Sarah, who spent 28 days in the Bialowieza forest

Politicians across Europe accuse Lukashenko of launching a 'hybrid war' backed by Moscow. 'Refugees and asylum-seekers are being brought to the border with the aim of intimidating Brussels and Poland,' said Marcin Swiecicki, an MP and former mayor of Warsaw. 'The situation is a tragedy.'

True. But Lukashenko's cynical tactics seem to be working, with EU countries spending millions of euros on border walls, bickering about how best to respond and the far-Right seeking to exploit the human misery for its own ends.

Taxi drivers in the Polish city of Bialystok, close to the border, told me of seeing even cars with UK licence plates arriving to pick up arrivals from Belarus. 'We see so many migrants and traffickers,' said one, called Pawel. 'You can see English, French and German plates on cars coming to collect people.'

In Germany, where police say up to 1,000 people are arriving every day, armed vigilante patrols of Right-wing extremists have been found operating at the frontier.

A record 200 crossings into Lithuania were attempted on one day recently. Others have begun trying to reach Europe via Ukraine.

Two months ago I reported in The Mail on Sunday about the surge into Lithuania, but focus has shifted to Poland. Officials logged 16,800 efforts at illegal entry last month – four times more each day than for the whole of last year. Hussan was in a group of 20 people from Iraq, Egypt and Syria whom I found sitting around small fires, craving food and dry clothes while drinking water from a small stream.

Pictured:  Ali Abd Alwareth, 24, from Lebanon sits in the woods outside the Emergency State zone at the Polish-Belarusian border and waits for arrival of Border Guard patrol, October 22, 2021

He said he had been pushed back and forth over the frontier four times in a fortnight in a grotesque game of human ping-pong being played by Polish and Belarus guards. Others said they were bounced over the border 20 times. There are reports of beatings, injured migrants ejected from Polish hospitals and families trapped in a militarised no-man's land on the Belarus side. At least ten people have died and many more lives are at risk as winter temperatures plummet.

'I'm so tired and it's so cold that I am shaking,' said Hussan. 'We are scared at night because of the wild animals so we hide our heads under our clothes.'

He spent all his £1,000 savings to get here. 'Life is a disaster. We've gone from our home in Syria to being trapped between two borders because no one wants us in their country. But we are human too.'

Hussan left his wife and four children in Turkey. But his group included an Iraqi man with his nine-year-old son.

Elsewhere in the forest, I met a woman called Sarah who is five months pregnant. The 26-year-old claimed to have spent 28 days in the forest with her husband Hassan, after flying to Belarus. Officials then took them to the country's border with Lithuania. They were caught after crossing the frontier, then taken across to the Polish border on the other side of the country. They had been pushed back nine times, she said, despite asking each time for asylum.

This sudden influx of migrants is stirring tensions in Poland, a divided country currently run by an ultra-conservative government at loggerheads with Brussels on gay rights, pollution and the supremacy of EU law. There is even talk that the country might follow Britain and leave the union.

'We put the security of our fatherland above everything,' said Poland's defence minister, Mariusz Blaszczak.

The defence ministry said that on Wednesday, Belarusian soldiers threatened to open fire on Polish forces who found a group of 250 migrants and refugees at the border. Nato says it is concerned about the 'escalating' situation.

Poland is one of ten countries that asked Brussels to pay for 'barriers' to block migrants – a request denied by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, who says Brussels should not fund 'barbed wire and walls'. In defiance, Poland is spending £300 million on a wall along the 260-mile border with Belarus. Critics say it will be a costly failure, taking years to construct in forests and swamps. Lithuania has also started building an 11ft-high steel fence topped with razor wire on its frontier.

The Polish government has declared a state of emergency, sent 10,000 troops to assist frontier guards and banned outsiders from coming within 3km (1.9 miles) of the border.

An Iraqi migrant child (pictured centre)  stands as he and others are surrounded by border guards and police officers after they crossed the Belarusian-Polish border during the ongoing migrant crisis, in Hajnowka

In a war of words against Lukashenko, whose international pariah status has pushed him into the embrace of Vladimir Putin, ministers claim Belarus is giving migrants 'strange pills' and the heroin substitute methadone to help them survive the border crossings.

After arriving in the border area, I received a text message saying: 'The Polish border is sealed. BLR [Belarus] authorities told you lies. Go back to Minsk! Don't take any pills from Belarusian soldiers.' My car was stopped several times at checkpoints in the region.

Piotr Mazuruk, a border police commander, said: 'These migrants are like stones. The Belarusians throw them over the border to us. And we throw them back again.' A plea from Catholic church leaders to let medical volunteers enter the emergency area was rejected by ministers last week. Activists and opposition figures argue that such decisions, and forcing people back over the border, flout international treaties – and so plays into Lukashenko's hands.

Karolina Czerwinska, project co-ordinator for the Polish Migration Forum, told me about a refugee who was treated for a broken leg in a Polish hospital and then applied for asylum. But she said that 24 hours later, the Polish authorities had sent him back to Belarus.

I accompanied volunteers from Grupa Granica who take food, drink and clothing to groups who send details of their location in the forests to family and friends as they play cat-and-mouse with the border forces hunting them down. One volunteer told me that many people crossing from Belarus thought they could happily stroll across borders through Poland to Germany, thus arriving utterly unprepared to be stuck in a freezing forest.

Pictured: Polish soldiers build a fence on the border between Poland and Belarus near the village of Nomiki

She had found a Syrian family with elderly grandparents and children as young as three. 'It was so sad. They had no idea they were in a forest hundreds of miles from the German border. They thought it would be so easy.'

Poland claims it is respecting international obligations to migrants as it tries to stem the flow of people. Under EU rules, people should apply for asylum in the first safe country they enter. But many of the migrants, hoping to head further west, do not want asylum in Poland. A former minister in the Polish government said: 'The pushback is not 100 per cent legal but it has become common practice on many European borders such as Greece and Italy.'

He said Poland was being targeted by Belarus in revenge for its strong support of the democratic anti-Lukashenko movement in Belarus, but was powerless to stop the regime without wider diplomatic support.

Although Belarus has promised to suspend flights from Iraq that are used by migrants, the winter schedule for Minsk airport shows 55 flights a week from the Middle East, including the launch of daily flights from Damascus, the Syrian capital. 

Some refugees have told of being taken directly to Belarus's borders after arriving in Minsk. But one local journalist describes the city centre as being 'Little Baghdad' as there are so many migrants, while a human-rights worker told me the capital's hotels are packed with Middle Eastern visitors. 

Most want to go to Germany, where Angela Merkel agreed in 2015 to allow one million refugees and migrants to come and stay. 

Although the numbers making the journey are far smaller than six years ago, the Berlin government rapidly moved thousands of police to the Polish border to intensify checks. 

The police union, however, is warning of another 'collapse' if tougher action is not taken.

Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, backs Poland's plan to build a border wall, but other politicians have condemned the responses that could results in people freezing to death in forests.

'This is a disgrace for Europe,' said Gerhart Baum, a former interior minister. 'We have a moral obligation towards these people that we are not abiding by.'

Gaith, 20, is a Syrian who has just applied for asylum in Germany. He told me he paid $7,000 (£5,200) in Lebanon for a fake passport but it was rumbled when he tried to enter Turkey. So his smuggler flew him to Minsk to ensure that he could enter Europe.

'I was stuck in the forest for 11 days – it was like a game of ping-pong. The Polish police send you back to Belarus, then the Belarus police send you back to Poland. It happened to me about 20 times. The Poles were friendly, giving us food and water, but the Belarusians beat people and let their dogs bite you. I was scared since the forest was cold and dark. There were so many people from all over the world – from Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon.'

Pictured: In this aerial view trucks and cars cross a bridge over the Oder River between Germany (L) and Poland as a railway bridge stands farther behind on November 05, 2021 near Swiecko, Poland (stock image)

Eventually, Belarusian officials took them to a spot on the border where there were no Polish frontier police, and five of his 16-strong group made it through, They were met by taxis hired by his people-traffickers and taken to Berlin.

The explosive nature of this crisis became clear two weeks ago when it emerged that more than 50 far-Right German vigilantes armed with batons, machetes, pepper sprays and a bayonet were stopped by police on anti-migrant patrols.

They had responded to a call from Third Way, a small extremist group which broke away from the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. That group told me it was sending 'sympathisers' on border patrols to find illegal entrants.

Sascha Rossmueller, chairman of the party in Bavaria, said their unarmed patrols kept within laws that allow people to 'physically hold' anyone suspected of a crime.

'The crucial aspect is not that we will prevent mass migration but it allows us to attract attention,' he admitted.

There have also been protests outside centres for asylum-seekers near the border.

'This is evil genius but we all play Lukashenko's game,' says Greta von der Decken, legal adviser for a refugee group working in Eisenhüttenstadt, a town by the Polish border. 'I am sad because Lukashenko is winning.'