WARSAW, Poland — The body of a migrant believed to be from Nigeria was found in a forest near Poland’s border with Belarus, Polish police said Wednesday, the latest death resulting in a standoff at the European Union’s eastern border.
The death was reported a day after a humanitarian group said it believed that a 4-year-old Iraqi girl has gone missing in subfreezing temperatures on the Polish side of the border with Belarus. The Border Group, an organization made up of refugee rights and other human rights groups, said the girl got separated from her parents, alleging that the parents were pushed back across the border into Belarus by Polish Border Guard officers.
However, Poland’s Border Guard agency denied that, saying it had not detained any families. It said that after receiving information that activists had given to the country’s human rights commissioner, authorities searched the area from land and air for the girl.
The Poland-Belarus border, which is also part of the EU’s border with Belarus, has seen a standoff involving migrants and refugees since the summer. The EU accuses Belarus of using the migrants like pawns as it orchestrated illegal migration against the bloc in retaliation for its sanctions against the government of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.