Warsaw, 25 September 1996 (RFE/RL) -- Poland's government announced today it plans to install special monitors along its eastern border to try to stop the flow of illegal aliens using Poland to transit to the West. The monitors will use cameras and carbon dioxide detectors.
A government announcement today cited by RFE/RL notes the special monitors are to be installed at road border crossings with Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad region.
Polish authorities believe many of the illegal aliens are being smuggled through the country in big trucks.
Reports say the flow of trucks, especially on the eastern border, is so great that authorities have little time to check more than the documents drivers carry. But a sweep by border police and regular police patrols in the last two weeks has turned up more than 300 illegal aliens, mostly from Asia and Africa, who said they had paid large sums to be smuggled into Western Europe.