Karayev denied Belarusian security forces’ involvement into border incident organisation
In his talk to journalists, the President's Aide – Inspector for the Grodno Region, Yuri Karayev, strongly denied the fact that Belarusian security forces were involved in organising yesterday's incident on the border
"This is absolute nonsense,” he said. “This cannot be true since we don’t need provocations on the border. We are not going to flirt with such things as war and border conflict. We need neither shots nor explosions on the border. Why an impression was created that we are teaching or directing refugees? They are being co-ordinated from somewhere else. With the help of Facebook, social networks, they suddenly changed the direction of their movement to the borders on Sunday and, as if following a command, gathered at this Bruzgi checkpoint from all directions of the border, such as Brest and Lithuania, for some reason. Their goal was exactly to come into the spotlight and demonstrate themselves through the media. Belarusian border guards pushed them out of the way so that they would not try to pass through the checkpoint. They scattered across the border zone, settled there and from there made attempts to penetrate into Poland. Of course, those attempts failed. You have seen the barbed wire, the fences and law enforcement – and primarily armed – forces of the Republic of Poland who located opposite the migrant camp and created a 3km control zone, catching those who managed to break through the green zone not at the checkpoint. They caught them, took their money, beat and kicked out. There was an incident on the border yesterday and the Polish side used special means as a result of it. Neither Belarusian border guards nor our law enforcement personnel were involved into it. Shots, explosions of firecrackers, special means and water cannons were used towards us – which are a violation of Belarus’ sovereignty. We do not wish this either. We don't need any provocations.”
Mr. Karayev stressed that co-ordination of refugees’ actions on the side of Belarus is hindered by an elementary language barrier, “We barely find a common language with them to help them not to freeze, not to die of hunger and not to commit actions that would damage the security of the border on both sides.”
