While some Belarusians have refused to aid the new arrivals from the Middle East, others are pitching in to help wherever they can. DW's Emma Levashkevich reports from Minsk.

Poland's PM Mateusz Morawiecki slammed Belarus' efforts to use migrants as "weapons" against the bloc ahead of talks with EU leaders. He also accused Belarus of having the "back-room support" of Russian President Putin.

Estonia's recently-elected president is urging caution over the situation at Belarus's borders with the European Union. Thousands of migrants hoping to enter the EU and claim asylum there, mainly from the Middle East, are camped at the borders. Asked by FRANCE 24 how dangerous he judges the tensions to be, Alar Karis said: "I think it's a threat. It's a border of the EU and of a NATO state. We should be very careful and cautious about what's going on Of course the sad thing is that there are innocent people in between that they are using as a shield."

As temperatures across Europe plummet, thousands of migrants are still stuck in Belarus, hoping to find a route into the European Union — although Brussels insists the bloc will not accept them. DW's Nick Connolly met some of them in Minsk.

The Belarusian strongman has encouraged migrants to continue their journey into the European Union. "We will not try to catch you, beat you, and hold you behind barbed wire," he said.

Citizens of Afghanistan were by far the biggest group of people applying for asylum in the EU, Switzerland and Norway in September 2021.

Brussels says the Belarusian government created the crisis by luring migrants with false promises. But some say Poland and the EU are ignoring human suffering.

UN representatives traveling to the region described the situation as "appalling," calling on both countries to live up to their human rights obligations.

The United Nations has urged Belarus and Poland to address the "appalling situation" at their common border. Migrants were being pushed back and forth across the border and left with little food, clean water or shelter, the UN human rights office said.

"King, the terrorist is the one who has exported ... Daeshi ideology to the world, and it is you," Nasrallah said in a speech, using an acronym for Islamic State, the hardline Islamist group that declared a caliphate straddling parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. His comments were criticised by Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati who said the criticism of Saudi Arabia did not serve the national interest or represent the country's official stance. Saudi Arabia and a number of other Gulf Arab states withdrew ambassadors and expelled Lebanese envoys in October and November over what the kingdom later said was arch-foe Hezbollah's dominance of the Lebanese state.

Doctors Without Borders removed its team on the Belarus-Poland border after Warsaw blocked access to migrants trying to enter the European Union. Camped in harsh conditions, several people have died on the EU's doorstep.

Prosecutors have added terrorism to the five charges a man who allegedly set fire to South Africa's parliament was already facing. The 49-year-old was also diagnosed with "paranoid schizophrenia."