WARSAW (XINHUA, REUTERS) - The Polish government has signed deals with several local companies to build a wall along its border with Belarus, Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik announced on Tuesday (Jan 4).

The barrier is built on the basis of a law on border security that came into force last October.

The law was voted through parliament as a reaction to large numbers of migrants attempting to cross into Poland from Belarus.

Poland had sealed off the region along its frontier with Belarus to outsiders as it had sought to keep out thousands of people from the Middle East and Africa who travelled to Belarus in the hope of crossing into European Union territory.

The EU had accused Belarus of flying the migrants into the country and then pushing them to cross into Poland and - to a lesser extent - Lithuania and Latvia in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Minsk over human rights abuses.

The barrier will consist of 5m tall steel posts with barbed wire on top, stretching for over 186km.

"A special task force was set up to make preparations for the construction of the protective border wall," Mr Wasik said, adding that the signing of the contracts marked the completion of the first phase of the project.

At a cost of around 1.6 billion zloty (S$536 million), the barrier is slated to be completed by June this year.