With the country bracing for further flooding, the authorities have pledged to crack down on thieves preying on deserted homes and businesses.
Writing on X, General Wiesław Kukuła said: “We are sending soldiers equipped with night vision and thermal imaging devices to support the police. Looters: night and a lack of electricity will no longer be your allies.”
His post was accompanied by footage shot in the southern town of Kłodzko showing several men robbing an abandoned petrol station.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak doubled down on promises to safeguard the property of those that had fled the floods.
“Protecting these places is our priority,” said Kosiniak-Kamysz, before branding the thieves “disgusting”.
He vowed that those caught would face swift justice. “We will catch and severely punish all those who dare loot,” he said.
According to Siemoniak, about a dozen or so incidents of looting have so far been reported.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk has likewise condemned thieves. “The Prosecutor General has assured me that each case will be prosecuted ruthlessly and will be treated as a crime deserving of the highest penalty allowed by the law.”
‘Exceptionally heinous crime’
He added: “We are not joking. In such situations, theft is an exceptionally heinous crime.”
Authorities have also clamped down on so-called ‘flood tourists’, people who have headed to impacted areas to shoot videos from embankments overlooking flood waves.
Under a decree issued on Monday, only emergency workers and those with official reason to be present will be permitted on such threatened embankments.
While Siemoniak conceded that such measures could be seen as “excessive”, he said that they were necessary to “allow the emergency services to operate effectively.”
