While Poland has taken in millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing war, third-country nationals fleeing the same clash receive the same assistance, the U. N. special expert on migrants’ rights said on Thursday.
Those affected come with permanent citizens of Ukraine, “undocumented” immigrants and other people who applied for asylum in Ukraine before the war forced them to flee again, Felipe González Morales told reporters at a virtual press conference where he presented his findings after a project. to Poland and Belarus earlier this month.
“This double technique has led to a sense of discrimination,” he said.
González Morales praised Poland for hosting more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees, granting them permission to work, as well as for health care, education and other public services. He also praised normal Poles who host Ukrainians, most of whom are women and children. to their homes.
“This explains why I don’t see refugee camps in Poland,” he said.
But González Morales also denounced that access to abortion in Poland for women who survived rape in Ukraine “practically non-existent in practice” despite being allowed by Polish law.
While the war in Ukraine has diverted attention, the UN special rapporteur for Poland and Belarus also focused on the scenario at the non-unusual border of those two nations, where thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have been trapped since last summer. At least 19 other people have died on both sides of the border, according to Gonzalez Morales’ findings, and many migrants remain missing.
It has taken a step forward particularly this year, but some migrants are still stranded in the border forest, Gonzalez Morales said.
The EU accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of employing migrants from Iraq, Syria and other countries as pawns to destabilize the 27-nation bloc in retaliation for sanctions against his authoritarian regime. The Belarusian government has denied orchestrating the crisis, but Gonzalez Morales said he had not presented any evidence for his claims.
Belarus has issued organizing visas for up to another 30 people to Iraqi citizens in 2021, he said. In addition, Belarusian border guards were fully aware of an organization of 2,500 migrants arriving at the border with Poland and did nothing about it.
On the Polish side of the border, migrants have been detained and forcibly returned to Belarus without the option of applying for asylum, at night and despite bad weather.
“Migrants are being pushed back and forth” even today, though the government on both sides denies it, Gonzalez Morales said. Journalists, civil society teams and humanitarian organizations had very limited access to the border during the fall, winter and spring, when Poland built a giant metal wall to prevent migrants from entering, making it difficult to know the situations of migrants at the border and the demands for the use of violence.
The UN report also found that migrants and asylum seekers, in addition to pregnant women and children, were detained on both sides of the border for weeks and months.
“There is a catalogue of human rights violated,” González Morales said.
___
Follow ap migration in https://apnews. com/hub/migration
Main titles by e-mail, the mornings of the week
Receive top Union-Tribune headlines in your inbox Monday through Friday mornings, primary, local, sports, commercial, entertainment and opinion news.
You may get promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Privacy PolicyTerms of UseSubscribe to our newsletters
To follow