Hundreds of migrants stranded on the border of Belarus and Poland in plummeting temperatures are hoping to travel onwards to Germany.

A 25-year-old Iraqi Gashtjar told dpa at a logistics centre in Brusgi which is currently functioning as an emergency shelter on Monday that “there are still 900 to 1,000 of us, including many children.”

The trained nurse, who speaks German, said he hoped the new German government would resolve the migration crisis, following Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Poland on Sunday.

However, there were no indications that any of the migrants and refugees were being allowed to enter Poland, where the government has placed additional security along the border.

Migrants from war-torn regions have been waiting on the borders between Belarus and several EU countries in the hopes of being allowed to enter the bloc.

Many see the crisis as having been deliberately orchestrated by Minsk in an attempt to destabilise the region, in retaliation for sanctions relating to a crackdown following a fraudulent election.

Meanwhile, Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko complained that the EU had failed to deal with the crisis for weeks, during comments to Turkish state television station TRT.

More than 3,000 people had left Belarus to return to Iraq or Syria, he said.

Mr Lukashenko said no one was being forced. “We do everything the way they want. They are starving people, poor people fleeing war. They really have no home in their homeland.”

The EU has already imposed a slew of sanctions on Belarus.

(dpa/NAN)