Belskaya: problem of refugees at the border exposed inhumane policy of ‘European Garden of Eden’
Larisa Belskaya, the Permanent Representative of Belarus to the UN Office and other international organisations in Geneva, took part in a dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, who presented a report at the 53rd session of the UN HRC, taking into account his visit to Belarus and Poland in July 2022, the Permanent Mission of Belarus in Geneva reports
Ms. Belskaya noted that the exceptional politicisation by the European Union of the situation with migrants that developed on its eastern border at the end of 2021 became a trigger for the Special Rapporteur's visit to Belarus. “Several thousand people who tried to enter the EU through Belarus in the autumn of 2021 were stopped by the Polish authorities at the border with water cannons, dogs and rubber bullets. Belarus did everything possible to avoid casualties among those people and provided them with temporary shelter, food, and medical care. From the very beginning of that emergency situation, Belarus interacted with UNHCR and IOM, allowing them to enter the border zone. UNFPA, UNICEF, and WHO also worked with migrants in temporary shelters,” she noted.
Ms. Belskaya added that volunteers and the Red Cross who co-ordinated the collection and distribution of humanitarian aid, as well as the media received access to migrants to get first-hand information. She said that the problem of migrants and refugees on the eastern border of Europe exposed the inhumane policy of the ‘European Garden of Eden’, “The EU openly discusses the financing of the construction of barriers and walls. The governments of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia are at the forefront of this policy, actively contributing to the impasse, which, among other things, fuels criminal networks of illegal migration and human trafficking. The large-scale restrictive measures of the West against Belarus, the unilateral termination by the EU and the governments of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia of interaction with the Belarusian border services cause serious damage to migration management.”
Ms. Belskaya called on the EU to heed the recommendation of the Special Rapporteur and return to practical co-operation on the issue of effective management of the joint border with Belarus in order to save human lives.
