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SLUBICE: Poland reinstated border controls on Monday with neighboring Germany and Lithuania following similar German restrictions imposed earlier this year aimed at discouraging asylum-seekers.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose government recently survived a confidence vote in parliament, announced the restrictions last week. Pressure has been mounting after far-right groups in Poland have alleged Germany was transporting migrants into Polish territory after they reached Western Europe.

The reinstated controls, which began overnight Sunday, will last for an initial period of 30 days, though authorities have not ruled out extending them, according to the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration.

“Illegal migration is simply a crime,” Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said Sunday during a news conference.

The Polish border with Lithuania, which stretches 104 kilometers (65 miles), will see checks in 13 locations. Poland’s border with Germany, 467 kilometers (290 miles) long, will have controls at 52 crossing points.

After taking office in May, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who made a tougher migration policy a pillar of his election campaign, ordered more police at the border and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe’s biggest economy would be turned away.

Last week, Merz said Poland and Germany were in close contact to keep the impact of Germany’s border controls “as low as possible.”

The European Union has a visa-free travel area, known as Schengen, that allows citizens of most member states to travel easily across borders for work and pleasure. Switzerland also belongs to Schengen although it is not an EU member.

According to the EU, member states are allowed to temporarily reintroduce border controls in cases of a serious threat, like internal security. It says border controls should be applied as a last resort in exceptional situations, and must be limited in time.

ISLAM QALA/KABUL: Nearly 450,000 Afghans have returned from Iran since the start of June, the United Nations’ migration agency said on Monday, after Tehran ordered those without documentation to leave by July 6.

From June 1 to July 5, 449,218 Afghans returned from Iran, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration said, adding that the total for the year so far was 906,326.

Tens of thousands of Afghans streamed over the border from Iran in the days before a return deadline set for Sunday, the United Nations said, sparking an “emergency” situation at border points.

In late May, Iran said undocumented Afghans must leave the country by July 6, potentially impacting four million people, out of the six million Afghans Tehran says live in the country.

Numbers of people crossing the border have surged since mid-June, with a peak of more than 43,000 people crossing at Islam Qala in western Herat province on July 1, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

The UN migration agency IOM said more than 250,000 Afghans returned from Iran in June.

UNICEF country representative Tajudeen Oyewale said this was an “emergency” situation in a country already facing a “chronic returnee crisis,” with 1.4 million Afghans returning from traditional hosts Iran and Pakistan this year.

“What is concerning is that 25 percent of all these returnees are children... because the demographics have shifted” from individual men to whole families, crossing the border with scant belongings and money, he said on Thursday.

He noted Islam Qala could accommodate the vast numbers but was inadequately equipped in terms of services, saying, “When you start hitting more than 20,000 people (a day) that is completely beyond the planning scenario that we have.”

The agency has engaged emergency processes to ramp up water and sanitation systems built for 7-10,000 people a day, along with vaccinations, nutrition and child-friendly spaces.

Many people crossing reported pressure from authorities or even arrest and deportation.

“Some people are so afraid that they don’t leave the house themselves... They send their young children out just for a piece of bread, and even those children get arrested sometimes,” said 38-year-old Aref Atayi of the pressures Afghans face in Iran.

“Even if I have to beg in my own country, it’s still better than staying in a place where we’re treated like this,” he told AFP on Saturday, as he waited at the IOM-run reception center for some support to help his family resettle.

Massive foreign aid cuts have impacted the response to the crisis, with the UN, international non-governmental groups and Taliban officials calling for more funding to support the returnees.

The UN has warned the influx could destabilize the country already grappling with entrenched poverty, unemployment and climate change-related shocks and urged countries not to forcibly return Afghans.