Poland, Germany should seek EU funds for hosting Ukraine refugees
According to the Polish President, the number of Ukrainians in Poland has recently grown to 3 million.
At a press conference following a meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the President of Poland Andrzej Duda said that Germany and Poland should seek financial support from the EU due to the growing number of Ukrainian refugees.
"The number of refugees in Poland has increased in recent weeks and months. We believe that there are about 3 million of them now. This will probably mean more refugees in Germany and neighboring countries. Some refugees see Poland as a transit country. Germany should expect the number of refugees to grow," Duda said during the press conference.
"We should ask the European community, the European Commission, for special financial support for our countries that take on the burden of accepting refugees," he added.
Between January and June this year, the Polish government built a five-meter wall along roughly half of the border with Belarus to halt the flow of "illegal migrants".
This happened as a response to the border crisis between the two countries.
In August, Duda condemned human rights defenders and called humanitarian activists helping migrants and asylum seekers at the Polish-Belarusian border idiots and traitors, according to NGO Grupa Granica - an informal network of Polish NGOs, activists, and inhabitants of the border region that provides humanitarian, medical, and legal aid to migrants stranded in the forests there.