We are stranded in this mess Migrants at Belarus-Poland border plead for help

"There are disabled people and children among us. There are children who are one to two-years-old, as well as pregnant women.

"We don't have food. The conditions here are terrible. We are bringing trees from the forest to light bonfire and warm ourselves."

Migrant stranded on Poland-Belarus border describes hardships

The man's comments highlight the plight of an estimated 2000 migrants, mainly Kurds, who are living in a tent camp in near-freezing temperatures.

His plea comes as Belarusian state-owned airline Belavia on Friday said it would stop allowing citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen to board flights from Turkey to Belarus at the request of Turkish authorities amid a migrant standoff between Belarus and Poland.

The European Union says Belarus is encouraging thousands fleeing war-torn parts of the world to try to cross its borders and may impose new sanctions on Belarus and airlines ferrying the migrants as soon as Monday.

The bloc has accused Belarus of mounting a "hybrid attack", while Kremlin ally Belarus has warned the crisis could escalate into a military confrontation.

A picture taken on November 8, 2021 shows migrants at the Belarusian-Polish border in the Grodno region. Source: AFP/Getty Images

Migrants have been trying to cross the border from Belarus to European Union soil in Poland for months but the crisis came to a head when hundreds made a concerted effort on Monday and were pushed back by Polish border guards.

Poland has deployed 15,000 troops along its border, put up a fence topped with barbed wire and approved construction of a wall on the frontier with Belarus.

One Iraqi man now in Belarus, who asked not to be named, told AFP by telephone that he and his family had made it all the way to the razor wire fence at the Polish border.

When they arrived, he said their group was confronted by "Polish soldiers" on the other side. 

Thousands of migrants are facing desperate conditions as they continue waiting at the Polish-Belarusian border, hoping to cross onto EU soil. Source: Getty Images/AFP

"We tried to cross," he said, "but the soldiers fired tear gas to force us back."

Now back in Belarus' capital Minsk, he said he remained in contact with relatives living inside the EU, eager to find another way to enter and cross to Germany.

Poland is refusing to allow the migrants to cross, accusing Minsk of luring them to Belarus to send across the border in revenge for sanctions, which were introduced by the EU "to respond to the escalation of serious human rights violations in Belarus and the violent repression of civil society, democratic opposition and journalists".

The man said in his video that children as young as two years old were among those at the Poland-Belarus border. Source: Getty Images

Minsk denies any such operations and rejects all Western accusations of wrongdoing.

Sanctions on senior officials have so far not been effective in weakening the rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994 and is a close ally of Moscow.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki this week accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ‘masterminding’ the surge in migration in an attempt to destabilise the European Union, warning the “neo-imperialist politics of Russia are advancing”.

Paramedics take an injured refugee to an ambulance as police and border guards officers detain refugees near Hajnowka, Poland. Source: AFP/Getty Images

“This attack which Lukashenko is conducting has its mastermind in Moscow, the mastermind is President Putin,” Mr Morawiecki told his nation’s parliament on Tuesday.

Mr Morawiecki said he was “convinced” that what was occurring on Poland’s border was “part of a bigger operation, part of a more coordinated attack, an attack that has the character of a new kind of war, in which people are used as living shields, and in which another weapon, known from other wars has been used … disinformation.” 

Western members of the United Nations Security Council released a statement following a closed-door meeting on Thursday in which they condemned "the orchestrated instrumentalisation of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus, with the objective of destabilising neighbouring countries and the European Union's external border".

Migrants in a tent camp on the Belarusian-Polish border on November 11, 2021. Source: Getty Images/AFP

Ahead of the meeting, Russia's deputy representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters he believed his Western UN colleagues "have some kind of masochist inclinations because to raise this topic, which is a total shame for the EU, in front of us would be very brave".

When asked if Russia or Belarus were helping move the migrants to the Polish border, Mr Polyanskiy said: "No, absolutely not."

He added that not all problems needed to be tackled by the UN Security Council.

Migrants receive food supplies in a tent camp on the Belarusian-Polish border. Source: Getty Images

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has urged the EU to start talks with diplomatically-isolated Belarus.

In his second phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in as many days, Mr Putin "spoke in favour of restoring contacts between EU states and Belarus in order to resolve this problem", the Kremlin said in a statement.

The EU is expected to decide next week to impose new sanctions on Belarus for human trafficking because of the migrant crisis.

The EU has so far refused any direct contact with Mr Lukashenko, who on Thursday warned that any new sanctions could see Minsk cut off natural gas transit to Europe.

In his video, the man said: "We are bringing trees from the forest to light bonfire and warm ourselves."

"We are heating Europe, and they are threatening us," he said on Thursday.

"And what if we halt natural gas supplies?"

Belarus' opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said Mr Lukashenko was bluffing about cutting off gas and urged the EU to stand firm.

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"It would be more harmful for him, for Belarus, than for the European Union and I can suppose it's bluffing," Ms Tikhanovskaya, who fled Belarus after claiming victory in last year's poll, told AFP in Berlin.

"We are grateful for the principled position of European countries that they are not going to communicate with [an] illegitimate person."

With reporting by AFP, Reuters and AAP. 

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