Originally Published: 16 NOV 21 06:11 ET

Updated: 16 NOV 21 07:28 ET

By Matthew Chance, Antonia Mortensen, Katharina Krebs and Eliza Mackintosh, CNN

(CNN) -- Violence erupted at the Poland-Belarus border on Tuesday, as migrants desperate to cross into the European Union threw stones at Polish border guards who responded with water cannon and tear gas.

Polish and Belarusian authorities have blamed one another for the ratcheting of tensions on the border, where thousands of people have traveled in the hope of making it into the EU only to find themselves stuck in freezing conditions.

There were chaotic scenes on the Bruzgi-Kuźnica border crossing, where crowds of migrants could be seen breaking up concrete blocks and gathering tree branches to throw toward the Polish side.

Loud bangs rang out over the crowds and a dense cloud of smoke hung overhead. Belarusian state media BeITA reported that the water cannons used by Polish forces sprayed a yellow liquid that caused burning, and that people were suffocating and feeling sick from the smoke. A CNN team was hit by the water fired by Polish guards.

One police officer was seriously injured after being hit by a projectile, according to the Polish police.

Women and children who, just a day before, had been camped out in tents near the border fence had moved back, and men, many of them voicing their anger about being left in limbo in awful conditions, were amassing in the most dramatic clashes to date. "We are fighting to stay alive," one man told CNN.

The Polish Border Guard said Tuesday that migrants camped out near the Bruzgi-Kuźnica checkpoint were behaving "aggressively," throwing stones and various objects at the Polish services. "In order to prevent illegal border crossing, water cannons were used against aggressive foreigners," the security agency said on Twitter.

Poland's Ministry of Defense shared footage on Twitter showing Polish officers and soldiers standing shoulder-to-shoulder with riot shields as rocks were lobbed over the barbed wire border fence, describing the scene as an "attack of migrants." The ministry also accused Belarusian services of equipping migrants with "stun grenades."

The spokesperson for Poland's security services, Stanisław Żaryn, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday about the clashes, describing migrants as "storming the border."

BelTA reported "an aggravation of the situation" on the border on Tuesday, as migrants try "by all means to get to Poland" and Polish authorities respond with tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon, "pouring water on people in the cold."

"People say they are tired of waiting and are ready to break through," according to BeITA.

It's unclear what sparked Tuesday's confrontations but there is a growing sense of frustration among migrants that Europe is not welcoming them.

Rumors have also been swirling over the past 48 hours in the camps where the migrants are located that Poland was prepared to open its humanitarian corridor -- a claim Poland says is not true.

The crisis has led the EU to prepare fresh sanctions on Belarus, which it accuses of manufacturing the crisis on the bloc's eastern frontier.

President Alexander Lukashenko's government has repeatedly denied such claims, instead blaming the West for the crossings and accusing it of poor treatment of migrants.