The Warmia-Masuria Border Guard reported the arrests of migrants entering Poland through the Suwałki Gap.
The foreigners were transported by couriers from Latvia and Lithuania, and their destination country was Germany, the Border Guard informed the Polish News Agency (PAP), cited by wPolityce.
Migrants are trying to get to European Union countries not only through the Polish-Belarusian border, as they are also trying to enter Western Europe by crossing the external border of the European Union between Belarus and Lithuania or Belarus and Latvia, and then entering Poland via the Suwałki Gap.
The area also lies between Belarus and the Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave.
As the commander of the Warmia-Masuria Border Guard unit (WMOSG), Colonel Daniel Wojtaszkiewicz, told PAP, his officers, supporting the Podlaski border guards, are detaining illegal migrants near the Suwałki Gap.
In May, they stopped cars in Gołdap, near Ełk, in Pisz, and in the Suwałki district, with a total of 28 migrants from Africa: 22 Somalis and 4 Ethiopians, as well as an Algerian and a Sudanese. The migrants were being transported in buses, as well as passenger cars. Some of the foreigners were even hidden in trunks. The couriers were a Latvian, a Ukrainian, and a stateless person with documents issued by Latvia.
Although the area has no official controls for the EU’s internal border, border guards can carry out road checks.
“We always react when the situation requires it. Through risk analysis, we know which communication routes to send officers to check cars,” said Colonel Wojtaszkiewicz.
He added that in connection with the disclosed cases, additional patrols were sent to the Suwałki Gap area.
Detained migrants report that they pay smugglers from $2,500 to $4,000 to enter Belarus from Lithuania or Latvia and continue their journey to Germany.
As WMOSG spokeswoman Major Mirosława Aleksandrowicz told PAP, foreigners were already illegally entering Poland through the Suwałki Gap two years ago. In 2023, border guards in that region of Warmia and Mazury discovered 134 migrants during car checks.
In 2024, 11 migrants in cars stopped near Suwałki. Another 50 foreigners traveling from Lithuania and Latvia were stopped in Poland by other services, following information received from WMOSG.
In accordance with the readmission agreement, Poland sends migrants back to Lithuania. Couriers are detained and, after being charged, await criminal proceedings. Organizing foreigners to cross the state border illegally is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 8 years.