On 12th December, the frontier guards said that over 180 migrants entered Poland through a tunnel concealed in a forest at the Belarus-Poland border.

The Polish Border Guard said in a statement that approximately 130 of them had been arrested in Poland after discovering the passage on Thursday, but the others remained at large.

It released footage of the tunnel that was excavated through roots and bare soil with wooden posts and metal rods, and was only 1.5 meters (5 feet) high, which is not sufficient to allow most of the population to walk inside the tunnel without crouching.

Since 2021, the Polish migrant crisis has been a problem facing the border of the European Union country with Belarus.

It has held Belarus and the ally of Minsk, Moscow, responsible for plotting to destabilize Poland by motivating individuals, the majority of whom are in the Middle East and Africa, to cross the border.

These accusations have been rejected by Belarus and Russia many times.

According to the border guard, this was the fourth tunnel it found in the western part of Podlaskie this year.

It also added that guards detained a 69-year-old Pole and a 49-year-old Lithuanian who came to collect the migrants.

“The location of the hidden entrance in the forest was about 50 meters (below the border fence) of the Belarusian side of the border, and the exit was about 10 meters of the Polish side of the barrier,” the Border Guard said.

Electronic systems were used by the officers to calculate the number of people who went through, and it was further added that the army and police had joined in the search for the missing migrants.

In 2022, Poland began construction of its border fence that is 180km (110-mile) in length.