SOKOLKA, Poland, Nov 19, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Hundreds of migrants have again

tried to cross the border from Belarus into Poland, Warsaw said Friday,
despite signs of the crisis easing after migrants left a makeshift
encampment.

  Polish border guards said there were attempted crossings by two groups on
what is the eastern border of the European Union and NATO -- one involving
500 migrants, some of whom threw rocks and tear gas canisters.

   The border guards said they had detained 45 migrants.

   Belarusian state news agency Belta said 2,000 migrants who had been camped
out in freezing conditions on the border spent the night in a nearby
warehouse after clearing out of their camp.

   Belta published photos of the migrants lying on mats in the facility and
wrote that "for several it was their first warm night".

   The West accuses Belarus of artificially creating a crisis by bringing in
would-be migrants and taking them to the border with promises of an easy
crossing into the EU.

   Belarus has denied this and urged the EU to take them in.

   On Friday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko spoke to his Russian
counterpart Vladimir Putin, with the allies stressing "the importance of the
establishment of cooperation between Minsk and the EU to resolve the
problem," according to the Kremlin.

   - 'Pushbacks must end' -

  The Council of Europe human rights commissioner Dunja Mijatovic called the
humanitarian situation along the border "alarming" and demanded an end to
Poland's controversial returns of migrants back to Belarus.

  "I have personally listened to the appalling accounts of extreme suffering
from desperate people... who spent weeks or even months in squalid and
extreme conditions in the cold and wet woods due to these pushbacks," she
said in a statement after a four-day mission to Poland.

   "All pushbacks must end immediately."

   She also called on Poland to allow rights activists and media "immediate
and unimpeded access to all areas along the border".

   Belarus said Thursday that there were a total of around 7,000 migrants in
the ex-Soviet country.

   It said that it would take responsibility for sending around 5,000 of
those migrants home and claimed that the EU would create a "humanitarian
corridor" to Germany for around 2,000.

   But Germany swiftly shot down that claim, saying it was not true that it
would take in 2,000 migrants.

  Meanwhile hundreds of Iraqis who had failed to cross into the EU from
Belarus returned home on Thursday on the first repatriation flight organised
by Baghdad.

   Despite the repatriations, Poland said pressure on the border was
continuing.

   "There are still attempts by migrants to cross the border illegally," said
Marek Pietrzak, spokesman of Poland's Territorial Defence Force, which has
soldiers on the border.

   - 'More aggressive' crossing attempts -

  Border guard spokeswoman Anna Michalska told AFP on Friday about an
incident late on Thursday involving around 500 migrants.

  "People in the largest group... threw rocks and someone also hurled tear
gas at Polish officials. At the same time the Belarusian personnel were using
lasers to blind them," said.

  She said four Polish soldiers had sustained injuries that did not require
hospitalisation.

   Michalska said there were fewer attempted breaches at the border compared
to last month, but the more recent ones "have become more aggressive".

   On Friday, Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak tweeted that Warsaw
was "happy to accept Estonia's proposal" to send 100 troops to the border to
help counter the crisis.

   The EU and US this week announced fresh sanctions on the Belarusian
regime, which has crushed political opposition and independent media since a
disputed presidential election last year.

   US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on a visit to Nigeria
that the US could add to sanctions already imposed on Belarus.

   "This effort to weaponise migration has to stop," he said. "First and
foremost, it is doing a terrible injustice to these people that it has
victimised by making them pawns."

  Polish media say at least 11 migrants have died since the crisis began over
the summer.

  A medical charity on Thursday said it had come to the aid of a Syrian
couple who reported their one-year-old child had died in the forest.