Germany to increase controls as farright activists target Polish border
BERLIN: Germany’s interior minister on Sunday said the country would increase controls on the border with Poland, as police broke up an armed group of far-right activists trying to prevent migrants from entering.
Horst Seehofer told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that 800 police had already been deployed on the German-Polish border to help deal with a recent increase in migrants crossing into Germany from Belarus.
“If necessary, I am ready to reinforce this even more,” he added.
Police Sunday broke up around 50 activists from the radical far-right group ‘The Third Way’ (Der III. Weg), which had called for its members to gather to take action against migrants seeking to cross the border from Poland.
During the operation, police seized pepper spray, a bayonet, a machete and batons.
A recent surge in people crossing illegally over the EU’s eastern frontier with Belarus has placed major strains on member states.
Poland has proposed building a 350 million euro (US$410 million) wall on its border with Belarus to keep migrants out.
Asked whether such border walls were necessary, Seehofer said: “It is legitimate for us to protect the external border in such a way that undetected border crossings are prevented.”
According to figures from the German interior ministry, around 5,700 people have travelled over the border between Germany and Poland without an entry permit since the start of the year.
On Saturday, a suspected smuggler was taken into custody after 31 illegal migrants from Iraq were found in a van near the Polish border.