"Sejm voted to approve the extension of a state of emergency on Poland's border with Belarus amidst rising illegal migration pressure orchestrated by the Belarusian regime as it attempts to destabilize the EU," said a tweet posted on the first chamber of parliament's official account. On Tuesday, Poland's President Andrzej Duda called for a 60-day extension of the state of emergency. In doing so, Duda intended to counter the "pressure orchestrated by the Belarusian regime to destabilize the EU," according to a tweet. "Unfortunately, the pressure at the border is increasing," Duda said after a meeting with his interior and defence ministers as well as heads of Poland's border guards. During the debate in the Sejm, Pawel Soloch, head of the National Security Bureau, an agency that reports directly to the president, told the body that in September alone, almost 7,000 migrants had attempted to cross the border illegally. In September last year, by comparison, there had been just 120 attempts. Aid organizations have warned that a humanitarian catastrophe could be unfolding along the border as migrants from the Middle East continue to mass there in an attempt to enter the European Union. Several migrants are already known to have died in the border area in recent weeks. The government in Warsaw accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of assisting refugees from conflict zones to reach the EU's external border to create a crisis. Lukashenko himself said at the end of May that Minsk would no longer prevent migrants from transiting Belarus on their way to the EU - in retaliation for tightened European sanctions imposed on the former Soviet republic. Poland is currently building a fence along the 418-kilometre border, which is largely made up of thick forest. On September 2, a 30-day state of emergency was declared on a 3-kilometre-wide strip of the border. As a result, aid workers and journalists are not allowed to enter. At a meeting in Warsaw on Thursday evening, the EU's Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson called on Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski to allow journalists into the area. Johansson described the meeting afterwards as a "long and open discussion," and said that Belarusian actions required a decisive response from the EU. A spokesperson for the European Commission said on Friday that Johansson had also expressed concern about reports of illegal migrant pushbacks on the part of Polish border officials.