EU to send aid to migrants at Belarus border

FILE PHOTO: Migrants gather in a camp near Bruzgi - Kuznica checkpoint on the Belarusian-Polish border in the Grodno region, Belarus November 16, 2021. Maxim Guchek/BelTA/Handout via REUTERS

WARSAW/BRUSSELS/VILNIUS (Reuters) -The EU said on Wednesday it will send 700,000 euros worth of food, blankets and other aid to migrants at the Belarus border, after criticism it had done too little to help thousands of people trapped in frozen woods by an east-west feud.

In a sign of European urgency to resolve what it calls an artificial border crisis created by Minsk, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone on Wednesday for the second time in three days to Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko.