Poland’s new firearms bill sparks human rights’ concerns

Many reacted angrily last month when the media revealed that three soldiers patrolling the border had been detained and handcuffed after they fired more than forty warning shots towards a group of migrants who were breaking through the border fence.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Tusk announced plans to re-introduce the exclusion zone banning unauthorised people to enter part of the border and change the law on the use of firearms.

Mr O’Flaherty appealed in a separate letter to Mr Tusk to stop the practice of migrant pushbacks, saying 7,317 people had been summarily returned to Belarus, in some cases after they had requested asylum in Poland, between December 2023 and June 2024.

In response, Mr Duszczyk said: “I consider returning the migrants to the Belarusian side immediately after crossing the border as a proportionate reaction.”

He said migrants who asked for international protection were not being returned.

NGOs estimate 130 migrants have died in the border zone in Belarus and its three EU neighbours, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in the last three years, many succumbing to exposure in sub-zero temperatures or drowning in marshy areas.

Mr Duszczyk said the new government has assumed “zero deaths at the border” as a principle, adding that 1,319 migrants who entered Poland illegally in the last three years have been treated in Polish hospitals.

He said non-permanent intervention teams created in February to search for people who have got lost in forests and swamps have helped 84 people.