DISINFO: Polish troops killed thousand of migrants on Belarus border
SUMMARY
Polish troops have killed thousands of migrants at the Poland-Belarus border.
RESPONSE
The claim is made without evidence and advances a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative concerning the migration crisis on the Poland-Belarus border.
In 2021, Lithuania, Poland and Latvia faced an influx of irregular migrants arriving via Belarus. Earlier, Belarus had terminated cooperation with the EU to stem illegal migration. This was Lukashenka's answer to the European Union sanctions against the political regime of Belarus (read more about sanctions here).
The Belarus government permanently accuses the western neighbour countries of brutal behaviour toward migrants and violation of human rights. However, these accusations are not supported by facts. It is true that there were several tragic accidents near the border that caused the death of some migrants. At the end of 2021, the number of migrants that had died during this crisis ranged from 13 to 21 (see information here and here). In any case, there are no “hundreds and thousands” of dead migrants.
See here for extensive debunking of this claim (in Russian). See our earlier articles on the Belarus migration situation here and here.