In response to the economic sanctions put in place by the European Union against his regime, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has orchestrated an unprecedented humanitarian crisis by pushing thousands of candidates for Europe towards the Polish border since the summer. In Poland, a state of emergency was declared in the border region on September 2: thousands of soldiers were dispatched there and control an area closed to outside observers where, contrary to international and European law , the Polish authorities are turning back asylum seekers, also turned back by Belarusian forces.
>> On the edge of Europe, migrants trapped in “hybrid war” between Belarus and Poland
Police, customs and army controls are everywhere, near the three-kilometer-wide no man’s land established by Polish authorities along the border with Belarus. One of Europe’s oldest forests is closing in like a trap for hundreds, if not thousands, of asylum seekers, most of them from the Middle East.
The local population is divided between those who help these people and the others.
Kasia, a Polish woman who is raising her three children alone, near Hajnowka, in a village near the so-called red zone, is part of a collective of volunteers. It accommodates activists who come to the aid of asylum seekers, and collects food, clothing and sleeping bags which they place at the edge of the paths in the nearby forest. “I don’t really know who I’m helping, all I know is that there are people out there who need water, food, shelter, and I’m trying to find it. to give”, she explains.
Kristina, Kasia’s mother, is sickened by the situation: “How can you live by throwing a human being over a border? A human being! Maybe it’s the customs officers, maybe the police, you don’t know who is doing it because you can’t see it no! But there is someone who does it and how can we do that? ” Non-refoulement is, however, one of the fundamental principles of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, a convention signed by Poland and Belarus.
This forest area is cordoned off, absolutely inaccessible and no one, not even humanitarians, can provide assistance to people in distress. “Even the National Red Cross has not obtained permission to access this area and this is our main concern “, insists Georgia Trismpioti, Humanitarian Diplomacy Advisor for the Red Cross.
“We know that hundreds of people are stranded between the two countries, and that they are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Unfortunately, we cannot assist them.”
Georgia Trismpioti, Red Cross Counselorto franceinfo
For Kasia the volunteer, the ultra-conservative Polish government has a good reason to prevent access to this area. “I think this 3 km zone was set up so that no one knows what is going on there.” Only the testimonies of those who escape allow us to get an idea of the situation. Ahmad spent 20 days in the forest. He was turned away five times, before reaching Germany. “I experienced what anyone can imagine: hunger, thirst, mistreatment, mental trauma, drinking water in swamps, crossing rivers one and a half meters deep, crossing swamps, to be detained by Belarusian and Polish authorities. To be beaten, insulted, lost, in the rain, to be frozen to death, to go several days without sleeping. “
Officially since August, ten deaths have been listed in this no man’s land on the borders of Europe. But those who survive the repressions attest that many more have lost their lives in this forest. With the onset of winter, this humanitarian crisis on European soil has only just begun.