WARSAW: Poland has repelled attempts by migrants to enter the country at its eastern border with Belarus, authorities have said.
Video footage showed hundreds of people near a barbed-wire border fence, which some tried to force their way through, BBC has reported.
The Polish government called a crisis meeting on Monday and deployed 12,000 troops to the region, the report said.
Poland has accused Belarus of pushing the migrants towards the border, describing it as hostile activity.
Poland, Lithuania and Latvia say there’s been a surge in the number of people trying to enter their countries illegally from Belarus in recent months.
Many of them have come from the Middle East and Asia.
The European Union has accused Belarus’s authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko of facilitating the influx in retaliation against sanctions.
Poland, which has been criticised for pushing back migrants and refugees at its border, has responded to the large number of people arriving there by building a razor-wire fence, according to BBC.
The Polish Border Guard also said it was closing its border crossing with Belarus at Kuznica from Tuesday morning.
(With inputs from BBC)
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