“We are seeing a huge inflow,” Olaf Jansen, the head of the relevant authority in the city of Eisenhuettenstadt on the border with Poland, told local broadcaster rbb-Inforadio on Thursday. Some 1,600 people had arrived since the start of the month, he said.

Accommodation and medical care were proceeding well thus far, and there was “great” support from the local authorities in the state, which surrounds Berlin, Jansen added.

He said told the broadcaster that 800 migrants had been sent on to other states in Germany and there were some who wished to travel on to France, the Netherlands or Scandinavian countries.

Jansen said that a solution to the growing problem had to lie in a political deal to put a stop to professional smugglers working on the border with Belarus.

According to Germany’s Federal Police, who are responsible for policing the external borders, more than 4,300 illegal migrants have entered the country along this route since August.

The migrants were predominantly from Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Iran, they said.

In response to sanctions imposed by the European Union, President Alexander Lukaschenko said in May that Belarus would no longer prevent illegal migrants from using his country as a transit route.

EU countries have accused Lukaschenko of deliberately encouraging migrants from crisis regions, and Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have strengthened their border security.