The European Commission is working closely with the Polish authorities to support them in effective border management amid recent developments on its frontier with Belarus, said the EC spokesman Peter Stano.

Poland’s border with Belarus has come under stress recently owing to migrants from the Middle East trying to get into the country. The Polish government has claimed that the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the Belarusian president, is using the migrants as a political tool to pressure Poland.

According to Mr Stano, the instrumental treatment of migrants by the Belarusian authorities for political purposes, observed in recent weeks, shows that the Lukashenka regime knows no boundaries in taking advantage of the suffering of these people.

He said that this is yet another example of the Belarusian regime’s brazen disregard for fundamental rights, human dignity and international obligations, which is absolutely unacceptable.

“Where necessary, the EU will continue to support the Member States affected by the actions of the Lukashenka regime,” Mr Stano stated, adding that if the situation deteriorates, new sanctions on Minsk are possible.

Earlier on Thursday, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Michal Dworczyk, said that Poland was dealing with a dramatic situation in which the authoritarian Belarusian state is trying to use unfortunate, vulnerable people for some kind of political action. This month alone, 2,100 people have tried entering Poland illegally. Of these, 1,342 were stopped by border guards and 758 were put in holding centres.

On Wednesday, the country sent about 1,000 soldiers to its border with Belarus to help stop numerous waves of migrants trying to enter Poland.