Belarus Clears Migrant Camp, Easing Border Standoff With Poland

Throngs of people, mainly from the Mideast, who had been living in freezing conditions on the border, have been moved to a giant warehouse. Their fate is uncertain.

BRUZGI, Belarus — Belarusian authorities on Thursday cleared the encampments at the main border crossing into Poland, where thousands of migrants had been living in frigid and increasingly squalid conditions, removing for the moment a major flash point that has raised tensions across Europe.

The patch of land nicknamed “the jungle” by migrants — only days ago the site of violent clashes between asylum-seekers trying to push through the razor wire and Polish security forces blasting them with water cannons — quickly became a wasteland of garbage, abandoned tents and smoldering fires.

The clearing of the camps eased the immediate suffering of the migrants who had been living in the open air in miserable conditions, as they were moved by Belarusian authorities into a giant warehouse. And it took pressure off a border that the European Union had been watching with growing alarm, fearing that it would be breached by a new wave of migrants, even if Western leaders — and Poland — are skeptical that the volatile standoff is drawing to a close.