Warsaw: Poland’s contractor began working on Tuesday on 353 million euros ($ 407 million) long along the Belarus border aimed at blocking migrant crossing after the crisis in the area.
The 5.5 meter high wall will run along the 186 kilometer border – almost half of the total length – and must be completed in June.
Construction has raised human rights concerns over how migrants will be able to seek asylum and environmental concerns about effects on wildlife along the borders that are mostly forested.
“Our intention is for the smallest possible damage,” Border spokesman Anna Michalska told the Polish news agency on Tuesday.
“Tree logging will be limited to the minimum needed.
The wall itself will be built along the border road,” he said, adding that the contractor would only use the existing path.
Thousands of migrants – most of the Middle East – crossed or tried to cross the border from Belarus to Poland last year.
The West blamed the entry of the Belarusian regime, said it had encouraged prospective migrants to fly to Belarus with an easy trip to the European Union.
Poland smoke the migrant crisis a “hybrid” attack from Belarus and its main allies of Russia, referring to the type of war using non-military tactics.
Belarus denied this and accused the Polish inhuman treatment of migrants.
Since then since being sent back with thousands of migrants to Iraq – the main country of origin.
At the peak of the crisis last year, Poland sent thousands of troops and police officers to the border to strengthen the patrol of the border guards.
It also built a razor wire fence along the border and closed the border area to the media and human rights groups, and approved a new law that allowed migrants to be forced to return to Belarus.
While the number of crossings has fallen sharply since then, some still try the intersection that is increasingly dangerous despite freezing conditions.
The border guard service on Tuesday said on Twitter that there were 17 crossings in the last 24 hours.
A group of 14 people – 11 Iranians, two Lebanese and one Syria – who “cut a razor wire fence and crossed to Poland”, said the border guard.
They were detained, said the border guard, along with a separate group of three people from Ghana who crossed in different borders.
Poland began working on the wall of the new EU-Belarus border
