MATEUSZ SITEK, A POLISH SOLDIER ON DUTY AT THE frontier with Belarus, was an easy target. As he tried to close a hole in the border fence someone holding a makeshift weapon — a knife taped to a tree branch — rammed it through the gap straight into his chest. Sitek, 21, died a few days later on 6 June.
His murder was little noticed in the West, but it caused fury across Poland. Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister, demanded that the Belarusian authorities hand over his killer. They are unlikely to agree. Poland’s border fence is 5.5 metres high, runs for 186 kilometres and is topped with razor-wire. So far this year there have been 17,000 attempts to breach it — and 90 per cent of those caught have Russian visas. Polish officials say that the flow is organised by Russia and Belarus to destabilise Poland.
Europe’s borders are under assault from highly-organised, violent armed gangs. People trafficking is a multi-billion dollar business. During the first half of 2023 Hungary’s southern frontier was the pressure point. The two sets of barriers have been heightened to four metres and reinforced with razor wire, night vision and thermal cameras. But they can still be crossed.
Migrants, mostly young men, daily besieged the fence. The Serbian side was divided up between different armed gangs. Each controlled a section and anyone passing through had to pay protection money. The frontier was closed to the media during the campaign for the European elections. But video footage of the southern fence obtained from the Hungarian National Police Headquarters shows the ferocity of those attempting to force
