Belarus leader says he may ask Putin "to get involved" as Belarus-Poland migrant crisis escalates
CBSN
Poland, near the border with Belarus — Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ally, Belarus' long-time autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko, are being accused of using immigration to stoke tensions in Eastern Europe. Belarus now faces new sanctions from the European Union over the worsening migrant crisis along its border with Poland.
As CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata reports, Polish authorities used water cannon and other means to keep thousands of increasingly frustrated migrants massed along the frontier out on Tuesday. There were chaotic scenes as a group of migrants charged the fence. One of the migrants told CBS News that Polish police responded with a volley of tear gas and rubber bullets, as well as the water cannon. Migrants were seen hurling rocks and stones at the barbed wire fence.
The EU and the U.S. have accused Belarus of encouraging thousands of refugees to try to cross into Poland. D'Agata and his team tried to get to the border where, on the other side of the barbed wire, at least 2,000 migrants and refugees have camped out for days in freezing weather, hoping to find a path into Poland.
