the guardian

Belarusian authorities have escorted an estimated 1,000 people, most of whom are from the Middle East, to the Polish border in an escalation of a deadly crisis that has already left people desperate to reach the EU trapped between borders and at least eight dead due to exposure.
Videos published by Belarusian media on Monday showed armed Belarusian border guards in combat fatigues guiding the column of people, which included families with children, along a highway from the border town of Bruzgi and towards a forest that runs alongside Poland’s Podlaskie region.
Video reports showed a standoff at the border, where Polish border guards reportedly used teargas to push back people as some in the crowd tried to cut through barbed wire or knock down border fencing to cross the border. Polish helicopters hovered over the scene as some of the migrants chanted “Germany!”, their desired destination, according to video posted to social media.
By evening, hundreds had set up tents and lit campfires in a forested border area, suggesting clashes could repeat themselves in coming days as Polish officials have vowed to prevent people from crossing into the country from Belarus.

Migrants attempting to cross from Belarus into the EU across the Polish border have become trapped between the two since October, when Polish police were authorised to summarily expel migrants and ignore asylum applications. Belarusian border guards refuse to allow them to turn back, meaning that people from countries including Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are left in the inhospitable forests as temperatures drop below freezing.

Crystal van Leeuwen, a medical emergency manager with Médecins Sans Frontières, told the Guardian last week that NGOs must urgently gain access to the secure zone for migrants’ claims and international protection to be respected.
Poland has reported nearly 30,000 illegal border crossings this year, with more than 17,000 coming in the month of October. Many are attempting to flee to Germany, which said it had received more than 6,100 refugees via Poland from Belarus since the beginning of the year.
Yet those efforts rarely looked so organised as the mass column on Belarus’s M6 highway on Monday, which critics saw as a dramatic attempt by Lukashenko to increase pressure on neighbouring Poland. Tensions soared between the two countries with the sharp rise in border crossings in October. In one case, Polish officials accused Belarusian troops of firing across the border.
Belarus has denied it has any hand in directing the flow of migrants. “The indifference and inhumane attitude of the Polish authorities has prompted the refugees to take such a step of despair,” the Belarusian border guard said in a statement on Monday.