A Polish soldier stabbed by a migrant near the border with Belarus last week has died. The man was treated for more than a week in a hospital in Warsaw.

According to the Polish army, the soldier from Belarusian territory was stabbed by an immigrant through the border fence. He was shot in the chest and seriously injured. He died of his wounds about a week and a half later.

Polish Prime Minister Tusk expressed his condolences to X’s relatives: “The young soldier Mateusz gave his life defending Poland’s borders. We will not forget this sacrifice.”

Poland asked the Belarusian authorities to extradite the perpetrator. In addition, Tusk announced that security around the border with Belarus would be strengthened.

The atmosphere on the Polish-Belarusian border is tense. There are thousands of migrants from the Middle East, the rest of Asia and Africa on the Belarusian side, where they are trying to enter Poland and thus the European Union. According to the Polish Border Guard, 17,000 people tried to cross the border illegally this year. In the summer of 2022, Poland built a 5.5-meter-high fence to prevent illegal refugees from entering the country.

According to Poland and the European Union, many of these migrants were deliberately brought to the border by Russia and its ally Belarus, in an attempt to burden Europe with a large number of illegal asylum seekers. Polish authorities say that 90 percent of the people on the border with Poland hold Russian visas.

On the Polish side, about 6,000 soldiers, 2,200 border guards and about 100 police officers guard the border. There have been more incidents of Poles being stabbed or assaulted by migrants at the border. As far as we know, the Polish soldier was the first killed.