WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland will reintroduce a no-go zone at its border with Belarus on Thursday, the deputy interior minister said on Monday, in a move to increase security following the death of a Polish soldier after he was stabbed on the border by migrants.
The border has been a flashpoint since migrants started flocking there in 2021 after Belarus, a close ally of Russia, reportedly opened travel agencies in the Middle East to offer a new unofficial route into Europe – a move the EU said was designed to create a crisis. Belarus rejects the accusations.
“(The regulation) will be signed on Wednesday, we will have time to complete the entire government circulation and it will come into force on Thursday,” Czeslaw Mroczek told private broadcaster TVN24 referring to a no-go zone.
He added that the zone will be over 60-km long and will be introduced on two sections of the border with the highest number of illegal crossing attempts.
In most parts it will go around 200 metres into Polish territory with a maximum length of 2 kilometres in the Bialowieza forest.
Last month Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a plan to reintroduce the buffer zone after the soldier was stabbed.
(Reporting by Anna Koper; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
