Huge queues at the border with Poland amid air raid alerts: trucks are waiting for up to two days
Kyiv • UNN
In Dorohusk, the queue reached 900 trucks on October 16, with a waiting time of around 40 hours. Border crossing operations are suspended during air raid alerts.
Huge queues have been recorded at Poland's border with Ukraine. Border crossing points suspend operations during alerts related to Russian airstrikes on Ukraine. Poland's PAP news agency reported this on October 16, UNN writes.
Details
The waiting time for trucks at the Dorohusk border crossing is reportedly almost two days, while at Hrebenne it is about two days. Traffic usually increases on weekends and holidays, but border crossing points also suspend operations during alerts.
Michał Derus, a spokesperson for the Chamber of Tax Administration in Lublin, said that on Friday, October 16, truck drivers had to wait about 40 hours to leave Poland through the border crossing with Ukraine in Dorohusk. The estimated waiting time at the other border crossing in Hrebenne is 25 hours.
The spokesperson noted that queues at border crossings usually grow ahead of weekends and holidays. Friday is the day when traffic and the number of vehicles waiting to leave can increase by several dozen percent, the publication notes.
Recently, additional disruptions have been caused by frequent Russian airstrikes in western Ukraine, which are warned about in alerts sent to local residents and government officials.
These alerts require the suspension of customs clearance and, if necessary, evacuation. Evacuations have occurred less frequently recently, but the number of alerts leading to the suspension of customs clearance in Dorohusk and Hrebenne may range from several to dozens during a twelve-hour shift, the publication indicates.
The spokesperson for the Chamber of Tax Administration in Lublin explained that these breaks usually last from a dozen to several dozen minutes, but if there are, for example, around ten of them during a single shift, the total suspension of customs clearance may last up to several hours.
He said that although border guards may and do carry out various customs clearance procedures during an alert, vehicles cannot leave the border crossing area because a special air-threat regime is in effect in Ukraine. "Ukraine, of course, no longer accepts vehicles at that time," he added.
According to border guards, approximately 900 trucks were waiting in line in the afternoon of October 16 to leave Poland through the border crossing in Dorohusk. "The queue is very long. It starts even before Chełm. We estimate that it will take about two days to clear the vehicles through customs," Derus added.
It was estimated that 250 trucks were waiting in line to cross the border in Hrebenne.