The number of irregular border crossings in Europe last year marked the highest total recorded since 2016. Like its fellow EU states, Poland once again had to deal with a rising number of illegal migrants.
Newly released data from a detailed Polish border guard report, seen by daily Gazeta Wyborcza, shows that over twice as many migrants—around 18,000—were detected by the authorities on the Belarus-Poland border in the first eight and a half months of 2023 as in the same period of 2022. Most were from Middle Eastern countries.
The data also shows that in the same time period 1,670 people were detained at or prevented from crossing Lithuania’s border with Belarus (down from 7,252 in the same period of 2022) and 8,741 on Latvia’s border with Belarus (up from 3,189 in 2022).
European Union member states have claimed that Belarus, with the help of its ally Russia, has weaponised migration by flying migrants into Belarus and helping them cross the EU’s borders. Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania have all erected fences at their borders with Belarus to prevent migrant crossings.
One month ago, Finland also announced it is closing the last open entry point along its border with Russia in a move to stem the rise in migrant numbers. The Finnish government has said it has evidence that Russia has been helping migrants reach the Finnish-Russian border, in retaliation for Finland’s decision to join NATO. In November, approximately 1,000 people from Middle Eastern and African countries presented themselves at Finland’s eastern border with Russia without proper entry visas or documentation.
The latest data from the Polish border guard also reveals that in the first eight and a half months of 2023, at least 13,000 migrants who were detained inside Germany near the Polish border likely entered the EU from Belarus or Russia.
Many countries, including Germany and Poland, decided to implement temporary border controls in September within the Schengen Area, because of the rise of illegal migrants entering through both Belarus and the Western Balkan route.
The Polish border guard revealed that Poland detained 2,000 foreigners last year who illegally entered the country through neighbouring Slovakia. Temporary border controls introduced on this border in October last year seem to have worked, because in November only three migrants were detained compared to 823 in September.
Border controls throughout Central Europe may have played a role in significantly decreasing irregular border crossings on the Western Balkan route. According to the EU’s border agency, Frontex, during the January-November period last year, the Western Balkan route saw the biggest annual drop among the major migratory routes, with the number of irregular crossings falling 28% to 98,600.
However, the Central Mediterranean, the Eastern Mediterranean and Western African migratory routes to Europe all saw a massive increase in illegal border crossings, resulting in 355,300 illegal border crossings into the EU in the first eleven months of 2023, the highest number recorded since 2016.
“Thousands of migrants who are already in southern Europe or Turkey will want to get further by checking the tightness of the borders and how the services of the countries in question work. Therefore, I do not think that the Balkan route will cease to operate completely in the near future. The forms of crossing the border will change, instead of cars, migrants will travel on foot, there have already been such cases, for example in the Tatra Mountains or the Beskid Mountains,” PAP news agency quoted migration expert Jakub Gajda.
Poland’s success indicates that more restrictive border controls are hampering established illegal migration routes, while the willingness of Belarus and Russia to weaponize migrants poses a new challenge to EU member states.
