Poland has begun construction on a $394 million wall in an effort to prevent migrants from entering the European Union via the country’s order with Belarus.
The wall, which is scheduled to be completed in June, is to be 18 feet high and run 115 miles along the part of the border on land. Other parts of the border are marked by the Bug River, according to The Associated Press.
Since thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa attempted to enter the European Union through the border with Belarus this summer, the country has attempted to protect its border with razor wire and guards, the AP added.
However, critics have voiced opposition to the plan and say that Poland’s wall will not stop the migrants.
“The wall stops only the disabled, the weak, the sick. It doesn’t stop desperate people who are fleeing danger from trying to cross,” Natalia Gebert of the Grupa Granica (The Border Group), which aids migrants in Poland, told the AP.
In November, migrant encampments along the border in Belarus were cleared after people, most of whom were headed to Germany, endured freezing temperatures and brutal conditions. At that time, the migrants were provided shelter in a government-run warehouse.
But throughout the crisis, at least 12 migrants died near the border, the AP reported.
“We were living worse than dogs,” 35-year-old Masoud Mahdi, who, along with his pregnant wife and young daughter, spent 11 days at the camp, said at the time.
The West had accused Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko of using the migrants as a political pawn against the EU following sanctions imposed following the disputed 2020 election. Belarus, however, denies those accusations.