tues
December 6, 2022
A dead body in a frozen river, spinal injuries after falling from a wall, a pregnant woman punished after being rejected: this is what we have on the eastern border of the EU, as the European Commission calls for a “firm” technique in Poland.
The frame of Siddig Musa Hamid Eisa, a Sudanese, discovered in the Świsłacz River in Poland on October 25, bringing to 27 the number of deaths recorded in the direction of Belarusian migration in the last 14 months.
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But there may be many more, given that another 186 people who tried to cross disappeared without a trace, according to Polish rescue activists Grupa Granica.
Poland has built a €320 million, 5. 5m high and 180km long fence to prevent migrants from arriving after Belarus transported tens of thousands of people last year and forced them to go to neighbouring European countries to stir up trouble. Airlines involved.
But more and more people continue to arrive, despite the threat of accidents, hypothermia or violence.
They now arrive in Russia first, before crossing Belarus and on their way, said two Arabic-language Telegram teams they used through migrant smugglers and noticed via EUobserver.
A Telegram company gave other people a tourist visa to Russia for €1,000, transit to Belarus for €500 and additional assistance to Germany for €5,950.
One organization momentarily handed out Russian student or long-term medical treatment visas for $2,000.
Grupa Granica receives about 160 calls for help from migrants every week, up from 50 a week in September, said one of its activists, Aleksandra Łoboda.
“People are going around the wall. They dig or climb, cut themselves with knife ropes and suffer serious falls,” he said.
“There is still a humanitarian crisis and it will do so with the drop in winter temperatures,” he said.
Another Sudanese injured his spine when he fell on Oct. 23 while trying to climb the fence, he said.
But he and his family refused to call an ambulance for fear that the Polish government would force them to return.
“I was afraid to do it, because other [wounded] people are sent back to Belarus [by Polish guards] directly from the hospital, or they don’t even go to the hospital,” Łoboda said.
Pushbacks — that is, deporting others without giving them a chance to apply for asylum — are illegal under foreign and EU law, but Grupa Granica hears more than 70 stories of such incidents every week, Łoboda said.
“Polish facilities use euphemisms. They say they ‘send other people back to the Belarusian border,’ but in reality they use force, putting other people’s lives at risk, for example by taking them across rivers with strong currents,” he added.
And once they return to the side, some are beaten through Belarusian guards as punishment for their failure.
A pregnant Ethiopian woman said she “punched” Belarusian officials after Polish guards shot her 3 times, Łoboda told EUobserver.
For their part, Polish border guards showed that the number of anomalous crossings is increasing.
But he said the increase is likely temporary, as migrants tried to cross before a new electronic detection formula was activated around the Polish wall.
A spokeswoman for border guards, Anna Michalska, contradicted Grupa Granica, saying anyone wishing to apply for asylum in Poland can do so.
But he said other people seeking out other EU states through Poland were turned away.
“I’m sorry, but we are not a taxi service to Germany. We are here to protect the Polish border and the Schengen zone,” Michalska said, referring to the passport-free zone in Europe.
Asked what happens when other people are returned to the border, Michalska said they return to Belarus because they have no other choice. “We have status in their path, so they can’t go back,” he said.
Meanwhile, there is little love between activists and Polish authorities.
Asked about the rejection allegations, a Polish diplomat said: “Evidence, please: where exactly?Which border guard unit? Photos. Videos and [names] of the other people involved. “
“If they [Grupa Granica] have proof, they will have to inform the appropriate institutions,” he added.
Polish officials were rescuing migrants, such as an organization of 10 other people trapped in a swamp last week, rather than driving them away, he added, and any allegations of human rights violations in Poland were Russian disinformation, he said.
The European Commission has downplayed the gravity of the situation.
“The number of abnormal border crossings remains limited,” says EUobserver.
The Commission’s policy is that all complaints of refoulement will have to be investigated “fully and credibly” across EU countries.
But he expressed more sympathy for Poland’s security considerations than for other vulnerable people in border forests.
“The European Union firmly rejects attempts to instrumentalize other people for political purposes and is competing strongly with the Polish government on this complex task,” he said.
“Orderly and societal border control in full respect of European asylum law and the basic rights of migrants is the effective and humane way to manage this situation,” he added.
Grupa Granica said it had “abundant visual documentation” and other documents for its allegations.
Łoboda noted that Poland has taken in more than a million Ukrainian refugees since the Russian invasion in February.
“This may be just a clever example of how Polish society can welcome migrants, but the Polish government has not replaced its strategy related to the border with Belarus,” he said.
Most of the other people passing through Belarus “are not real refugees,” like Ukrainians fleeing war, said Michalska of border guards. “They are economic immigrants,” he added.
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