GENEVA: Belarus and Poland are pushing refugees back and forth across their border and leaving them with little if any food, clean water or shelter, the UN Human Rights office said on Tuesday.
And urging both countries to “address this appalling situation.”
Refugees and migrants interviewed by a UN human rights team on a Nov. 29 to Dec. 3 trip to Poland said they had suffered violence or threats in Belarus and been left hungry and cold, a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights office said.
“Those interviewed described dire conditions on both sides of the border, with no or limited access to food, clean water and shelter, often amid freezing temperatures,” Elizabeth Throssell told reporters.
Most said that, while in Belarus, they had been beaten or threatened by security forces, who some refugees said had also demanded “extortionate sums” for food and water and forced them to cross the border.
Belarusian officials and the Polish government had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.
Thousands of migrants are stuck on the European Union’s eastern frontier.
Poland and the EU accuse Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of encouraging the migrants to travel to Belarus and cross the border illegally as revenge for sanctions imposed on Minsk over human rights abuses.
Belarus denies this and says the EU is to blame for the humanitarian crisis on the border.
Poland says the migrants are Belarus’s responsibility and that its offers of humanitarian aid have been rejected.
Throssell said many migrants and refugees interviewed by the UN team had crossed the border multiple times in both directions due to “recurring practices by the two countries of pushing people up to or across the border.”
Some of them hid from security forces for weeks in the forest along the border, with one of the migrants making 26 attempts to cross from Belarus to Poland.
The UN Human Rights office, which said Belarus had not accepted its request to visit, urged both countries to “ensure that refugees’ and migrants’ human rights are at the center of their actions.”
UN urges Belarus, Poland to address refugees’ ‘dire conditions’
https://arab.news/g88mh
UN urges Belarus, Poland to address refugees’ ‘dire conditions’
- Those interviewed by a UN human rights team on a Nov. 29 to Dec. 3 trip to Poland said they had suffered violence or threats in Belarus
- Most said that, while in Belarus, they had been beaten or threatened by security forces
Top US defense official hails ‘model ally’ in South Korea talks
SِEOUL: The Pentagon’s number three official hailed South Korea as a “model ally” as he met with local counterparts in Seoul on Monday, days after Washington’s new defense strategy called for reduced support for partners overseas.
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby arrived in South Korea on Monday and is seen as a key proponent of President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
That policy — detailed in Washington’s 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) released last week — calls for the United States to prioritize deterring China and for long-standing US allies to take “primary responsibility” for their own defense.
Arriving in Seoul on his first overseas trip as the Pentagon’s number three official, Colby in a post on X called South Korea a “model ally.”
And he praised President Lee Jae Myung’s pledge to spend 3.5 percent of the country’s GDP on the military.
That decision, he told a forum, “reflects a clear-eyed and sage understanding of how to address the security environment that we all face and how to put our storied and historic alliance on sound footing for the long haul,” according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
“Such adaptation, such clear-eyed realism about the situation that we face and the need for greater balance in the sharing of burdens, will ensure that deterrence remains credible, sustainable and resilient in this changing world,” he added, according to the agency.
Colby also met Monday with South Korea’s defense and foreign ministers, who touted Seoul’s development of nuclear-powered attack submarines as proof the country was taking more responsibility for its defense.
Details remain murky on where the nuclear submarines will be built, however.
South Korea’s leader said last month it would be “extremely difficult” for them to be built outside the country.
But Trump has insisted they will be built in the United States.
Longstanding treaty allies, ties between the United States and South Korea were forged in the bloodshed of the Korean War.
Washington still stations 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against the nuclear-armed North.
