(AP) A year after migrants started crossing into the European Union from Belarus to Poland, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and top security officials visited the border area on Thursday to mark the completion of a new steel wall.
On Friday, Polish authorities will also lift a state of emergency along the border that has blocked journalists, rights workers and others from witnessing a human rights crisis. At the very least, 20 migrants have died in the area’s freezing forests and bogs.
The Polish government characterizes the wall as part of the fight against Russia; human rights defenders see it as representing a huge double standard, with groups of white Christian refugees from Ukraine made up mostly of women welcomed but predominantly male Muslims from Syria and other countries rejected and mistreated.
