OREANDA-NEWS. The Polish Sejm has supported the government's decision to impose a state of emergency on the border with Belarus due to a sharp increase in the number of illegal migrants. On the evening of Monday, September 6, 247 parliamentarians voted for the decision, 168 were against, 20 abstained. The introduction of the state of emergency was supported by the ruling party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski «Law and Justice», as well as the association «Confederation». The «Civil Coalition» and the «left» were against it.

The Polish government introduced a state of emergency on the border with Belarus last week, on September 2, the decree was signed by President Andrzej Duda. The Parliament had the right to cancel the decision.

The state of emergency is introduced for 30 days at a distance of 3 km from the border with Belarus and affects 183 settlements in Podlaskie and Lublin voivodeships. Mass events will be temporarily prohibited on the territory of it's operation, persons who are in public places will be required to carry an identity card, and people who do not live in these settlements, including journalists, will not be able to enter them. The local authorities reacted with understanding to the decision, the Polish Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration Mariusz Kaminski said.

Warsaw is concerned about the growing flow of illegal immigrants from Belarus. Since the beginning of August, about 3,500 attempts to illegally cross the border of the republic from the Belarusian side have been recorded in Poland. On August 27, Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak announced the start of construction of a 2.5-meter-high fence at the border to solve the problem of illegal migration. According to the estimates of the Polish border guards, there are currently more than 10,000 migrants from crisis regions seeking to enter the EU in Belarus.