The UN Security Council has discussed the migration crisis on the border of Belarus and the EU. Western and EU member states have condemned the actions of Minsk, while Russia has sought to blame Lithuania and Poland, British public broadcaster BBC reports.
In an emergency meeting on Thursday, November 11, Western member states issued a joint statement, accusing Belarus of putting migrants’ lives in danger «for political purposes». The countries – Estonia, Albania, France, Ireland, the UK and the US – also noted that Belarus was trying to divert «attention away from its own increasing human rights violations».
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Russia spoke against the accusations and blamed Poland and neighbouring Lithuania for mistreating migrants. «There are a lot of cases when Polish and Lithuanian border guards beat migrants and pushed them back to Belarusian territory. (..) I would say that this is total shame and a total violation of any possible international conventions and rules,» claimed the Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy.
Also on Thursday, Aleksander Lukashenko in Minsk, who has repeatedly denied Belarus is sending migrants to its borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in revenge for existing EU sanctions, said his country would have to respond if the EU imposed a fifth series of sanctions. Lukashenko pointed to halting natural gas supplies referring to a Russian gas pipeline that runs through Belarus and into the EU, BBC reports.
Part of UN Security Council criticises Belarus for migration crisis
