‘The Border Is Closed’: Poland Sends Thousands of Texts to Migrants in Belarus Telling Them to Go Back

The Polish government has sent at least 31,000 text messages to migrants near its border with Belarus telling them to go back to Minsk, stating that the Polish border is closed.

The text messages say in English, “The Polish border is closed. The Belarusian authorities lied to you. Go back to Minsk!” and give links to a site in English, French, Arabic, Russian, and Polish stating that migrants who cross the border illegally are subject to imprisonment.

The site also warns the migrants that adverse weather conditions at the border could place their safety at risk, particularly if migrants are sleeping outside and without any form of shelter, broadcaster FranceInfo reports.

The warning is not without precedent as five migrants have been found dead at the Polish-Belarusian border in recent weeks, with some migrants reportedly freezing to death as nighttime temperatures drop close to freezing.

Earlier this month, Poland declared a state of emergency at the border regions with Belarus and has since revealed that some of the migrants crossing illegally from Belarus have had radical Islamic propaganda in their possession.

Some of the migrants are also said to have possessed child pornography and images of bestiality on their mobile devices, which led to a bizarre fact-check by left-wing journalists as to the correct species of animals in the pornography in question.

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński stated this week that the government would also be extending the state of emergency along the border by another 60 days.

Poland has blamed the Belarusian government of President Alexander Lukashenko for the surge in migrant arrivals, an estimated 5,000 attempted crossings since the start of September.

This week, European Union Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said that President Lukashenko was “desperate”, following actions imposed upon his regime after what many believe to have been the hijacking of a RyanAir flight that had a regime-critical journalist aboard in May.

“This is not a regime with which we can cooperate in any way,” Johansson said, saying of Lukashenko’s tactics to lure people from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa to the border of Europe: “He is tricking people into paying a lot of money [to be smuggled] and then they just get stuck.”

“We must never be weak towards Lukashenko. He is desperate,” she added.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com