Updated: Jul 12, 2023
Poland has admitted to invading the Czech Republic this past may. However, the Polish Defence Ministry described the whole thing as a gigantic mistake.
Apparently Polish troops sent to guard the border during the coronavirus lockdown took up positions by an oratory situated on the Czech fringe of the border staying there for a number of days prohibiting Czech people from entering the area
Czech agencies eventually halted the occupation after contacting Warsaw.
The confrontation happened in north-eastern Moravia, an area that forms part of Silesia, which extends into the Czech Republic.
Poland has described the incident as a blunder. However, the Czech Foreign Ministry said as, yet they have not received an official clarification.
The story first surfaced in the provincial Denik paper.
A building engineer sent to oversee repairs at the oratory attempted to take a few photographs of the plaster within the church but was turned away with armed Polish Soldiers some of who were armed with machine guns
The Denik newspaper later sent a photographer and his pictures seemed to confirm the workers' story.
The chapel situated just 30 metres on the side of Czech territory in an area where a small stream forms the borderline.
According to other reports the soldiers originally set up there roadblock adjacent to the bank on the Polish side of the border. However, for reasons decided to move the roadblock over to the Czech side of the border.
The engineer sent to inspect the church said he was forced away from the site on the 28th May 2020 and it would appear that the armed soldiers maintained their positions through both Saturday and Sunday.
Other visitors were also unceremoniously turned away at gunpoint notably the Czech equivalent of Friends of the Earth who had planned to hold a small meeting in the local village of Pelhrimovy.
One of those turned away by the soldiers a Mr Dokoupil told the newspaper that "A soldier dressed in the uniform of a foreign state and carrying a sub-machine gun started giving me orders. It was a terrifying experience”.
It was only after this unnerving incident that the local Czech police were called and the soldiers were ordered back to the Polish side of the border.
Steve Simmonds
Credits and sources: BBC.UK, CNN, The Denik newspaper the Czech Foreign Ministry and Carl Nenzen Loven for cover picture Unsplash contributor