‘Refugees at Poland’s gates’

Published on 25 October 2013

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“A record number of immigrants without visas, documents and money, are storming Poland’s borders,” warns Rzeczpospolita.
In the first half of this year alone, Poland turned away 52,000 people from the East, mostly Russians of Chechen origin, Ukrainians, Bulgarians and Georgians, according to data from the Border Guard, the nation’s border security agency.
Meanwhile, the Office for Foreigners has received a flood of asylum applications, with more than 14,000 filed by mid-October.
“This is twice as many as the previous year. A historic record,” says Rafał Rogala, head of the Office pointing to “economic factors” - ie, poverty - as the primary factor behind this influx. According to the daily,

Poland is just a transit country for the majority of immigrants who are heading for Germany.

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