A group of Afghans has been trapped for three weeks on the edge of a forest on the Polish-Belarusian border, trapped in no man’s land by Polish security forces who will not allow them to enter Poland and Belarusian troops who do not allow them. will allow you to go back.
According to local activists, the situation of the 32 Afghans, who are short of food and some seriously ill, has attracted intense attention in Poland and internationally.
The confrontation is the result of the increase in migrants arriving at the borders of the European Union that has been designed by the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, as alleged retaliation against the bloc for its support of the pro-democracy movement that has asked him to leave office. .
European officials have accused Belarusian authorities of flying to migrants and then directing them to Western borders with the aim of orchestrating a migration crisis that sought to put pressure on its European neighbors. So far this year, more than 4,000 people, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan, have crossed illegally from Belarus to neighboring Lithuania. That is 50 times more than all of 2020, according to officials. Poland, which is much larger than Lithuania, has recorded more than 3,000 illegal crossings since early August.
The governments of Lithuania and Poland have said they cannot absorb the influx and have hastily deployed more security agents and put up a new border fence. The Polish government announced on Tuesday that it was seeking a state of emergency for the border area. Meanwhile, Belarusian security forces have been filmed with riot police trying to force migrants to return to the border after returning them.
The 32 Afghans trapped at the border in Usnarz Górny have been trapped in the center. Last week, Fundacja Ocalenie, a Polish charity working with refugees, and a member of the opposition parliament managed to pass shops, food and clothing, but since then Polish border guards have prevented them from approaching. to the group, a spokeswoman for the charity said. .
“These are terrible conditions,” Marianna Warteska, a spokeswoman, told ABC News by telephone from near the border. “They don’t get any kind of medical care; their health is getting worse.”
He said the group drank unclean water from a nearby stream and survived on bread delivered by Belarusian guards every two days. Volunteers have communicated with the Afghans through a megaphone, he said, but Polish guards often turned on the engines and sirens of the vehicles to try to drown them.
Eight of the Afghans had kidney problems and five had diarrhea, according to Warteska. He said a 26-year-old man lost consciousness for 20 minutes on Thursday, but border guards refused to call an ambulance. He warned that another fifty-year-old woman had not been able to leave her tent for several days.
A spokeswoman for the Polish border service on Tuesday declined to comment to ABC News.
Warteska said the 32 Afghans had expressed their desire to seek international protection in Poland and that they had legal representation from their organization. He said there was no reason why the Polish authorities could not adopt the group for standardized processing which would then assess whether they should be granted asylum or returned to their countries of origin. The decision to keep them at the limit was a political stance, he said.
“It simply came to our notice then. And it basically has no purpose, “he said.” Because you know they are 32 people, they are able to process them. It’s not like 3 million are here. We don’t just ask for a free pass. We just want the Polish authorities and the border guards to behave according to the law. Because right now what they are doing is illegal. “
The Polish government announced on Tuesday that it was seeking the country’s president’s approval for a state of emergency to be imposed on part of the border for 30 days in response to migrant arrivals.
“The situation on the border with Belarus is a crisis, it is very tense, because the Lukashenko regime transports people mainly from Iraq to the territory of Belarus and then pushes these people into the territory of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to destabilize our countries, “said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
The measure, which would cover 183 cities 3 kilometers from the border, also requires parliamentary approval. It has already attracted criticism from opposition parties and rights groups, who have said the state of emergency is less about stopping migrants than hindering the presence of activists and the media at the border.
Jan Grabiec, a spokesman for the Civic Platform, the largest opposition party, said the state of emergency was not intended to stop migrants and “will only prevent the Polish media from showing the chaos and helplessness of the government.” .
Lithuania has also declared a state of emergency due to the border situation and has appealed to the EU to impose new sanctions on Belarus. Both Poland and Lithuania strongly supported the Belarusian opposition during protests against Lukashenko last year, offering asylum to some of its key leaders.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled last week that the Polish government should provide food, clothing, medical care and possibly temporary shelter to Afghans. The court has not yet ruled on whether Poland is obliged to let immigrants into its territory.