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2022-01-31 Europe
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Traveling along Poland's border with Belarus
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[DW] For months, Poland's side of the border with Belarus was off-limits to aid workers and media as displaced people attempted to cross to the EU. Now, journalists are allowed in again, under strict controls. DW went along.
Scene-setting description snipped, leaving the information that interests us, dear Reader:
NEW EU FENCE
The spokeswoman decided where we stopped and what we saw. At our first stop, soldiers stood in a field in front of a razor wire fence. In the past, she said, there was no need for such barriers at the border because there was good cooperation with the Belarusian border guards. In a private conversation, she even told us that the guards of the opposite sides of the border even took joint canoe trips together.
But now, she said, the Belarusian guards work with migrants colonists to cut the razor wire together and blind Polish soldiers with mirrors to enable illegal border crossings. The barbed wire is soon be replaced by a high fence, she said.
This high fence, popularly known as "the wall," has been officially under construction since January 24. It will consist of 5-meter (16.5-foot) posts topped with barbed wire and equipped with motion detectors and infrared cameras.
About 180 kilometers of the border will need to be paved, at a price of roughly €355 million euros ($396 million). Environmentalists and local residents have long protested the installation, as the fence will cut through the virgin forest at the border — disrupting the habitat of several wild animals.
WARNINGS TO MIGRANTS COLONISTS
We stopped in front of a car parked in the middle of a field. From the loudspeaker on the roof, messages blared out in English, French, Arabic and a Kurdish dialect, telling the migrants colonists on the Belarusian side of the border that they had been cheated, that crossing the border into Poland is a punishable offense and that they should return to Minsk , the capital of Belarus.
We reached Usnarz Gorny. It was near this village that refugees from Afghanistan were stuck in limbo for two months on the Belarusian side of the border in the summer of 2021 — blocked on both sides by the national guards.
The refugees received help from activists and lawyers, they even applied for asylum, but they were not allowed on Polish territory.
VIOLENT BORDER ENFORCEMENT
We saw remains of the makeshift camp that housed the refugees: tents, blankets and bags. The area has not been cleaned up. "We are not allowed to do that," the Polish police spokeswoman said. "All the things are on the Belarusian side." That was also the argument used in the summer of 2021 to explain why Poland could not help people sleeping rough in the forest.
Now the place is deserted. "One day they were suddenly gone, probably taken away by Belarusian authorities," the spokeswoman said. In October, the Polish border agency reported that a group of Afghans had broken through the fence into Poland and were detained.
According to activists, pepper spray was used against the migrants colonists. Then they were reportedly driven back to Belarus. We asked the spokeswoman what she knows about it.
"Anyone who needs help will get it," she said, "and anyone who wants to apply for asylum can do so."
THE EU MIGRANT CRISIS ALONG THE BELARUS-POLAND BORDER
Agata Ferenc, of the Ocalenie Foundation, which supports refugees, was in Usnarz Gorny before the area was closed. Since then, she and some fellow volunteers have been trying to help from outside the restricted zone.
Aid workers still receive about a dozen calls a day from people in need of help who are stuck somewhere along the border. "The first thing they usually ask us is not to inform the border guards," Ferenc said. "They know the border guards will send them back to Belarus if they are found."
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Posted by trailing wife 2022-01-31 00:00||
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File under: Migrants/Illegal Immigrants
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Posted by Chealing Chomotle4158 2022-01-31 00:16||
2022-01-31 00:16||
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Posted by Ulush Snaiger1224 2022-01-31 10:31||
2022-01-31 10:31||
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