By Barbara Erling, Kuba Stezycki and Kacper Pempel
BIALOWIEZA, Poland (Reuters) – Surrounded by lush forests, a dozen individuals huddled close to a razor-tipped fence alongside the Belarus border, ready for an opportunity to scale it or push apart its slats to move west into Poland.
On the opposite aspect, armed Polish border guards and troopers walked and drove backwards and forwards, retaining a detailed eye on group, who have been principally younger males from the Center East, a few of them marked with cuts from the sharp wire.
Tensions over migration are excessive throughout Europe as far-right events calling for harder controls face off in opposition to centrist actions in European Parliament elections, that are happening in Poland on Sunday.
Right here, that standoff has an additional geo-political edge. Poland and the European Union have accused Belarus and Russia of attempting to unfold chaos since 2021 by pushing migrants over the frontier in what Warsaw calls a “hybrid war”. Minsk and Moscow have dismissed the accusations.
The numbers of individuals arriving have been rising lately, based on Polish authorities figures. And this week, what Poland sees as a struggle had a casualty when a soldier patrolling the border died after succumbing to his wounds from a confrontation with migrants on Could 28.
In response, the centrist, pro-EU authorities of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has introduced plans to re-introduce a no-go zone alongside the frontier.
“This border is not safe, unfortunately. The purpose of this zone is to ensure that no one is exposed to the type of attack that Polish soldiers are exposed to,” deputy defence minister Paweł Zalewski advised Reuters.
OVER THE FENCE
Again on the fence on Monday, the group stored ready. Ahmed Lebek, 24, from Aleppo, Syria, mentioned he had been there for greater than a month. His brother had given up and gone again to Belarus, although he had had no information from him since.
“I come from the war to find a good life. But I found it very hard to cross this border,” mentioned Ahmed, 35, an English instructor type Syria. He had tried 4 occasions to climb the fence.
Below present preparations, migrants can apply for asylum in EU-member Poland as soon as they’re on the Polish soil.
One in every of them who made it although the fence a day later was Noaman Al-Hemyari, a 24-year-old graphic designer from Yemen.
Within the forest on the Polish aspect of the border, he advised Reuters he and others has constructed a ladder from wooden, cloth scraps and plastic baggage, and scaled the barrier when darkness fell.
He had initially utilized for a Polish scholar visa from Yemen, which was rejected, earlier than travelling to Moscow, then Belarus and later the border space the place he had spent 22 days.
“We had been caught by the Belarussians. They hit us … Then they said ‘go’,” Noaman mentioned, visibly relieved and with leaves nonetheless in his hair.
“They (smugglers) said it’s so easy … They lied to us. If I had any idea it’s like this, I wouldn’t have come.”
The no-go zone, when it’s launched, will make issues much more troublesome for the migrants, mentioned Agata Kluczewska, who runs an area migrant help group, providing meals, medication and transport.
She had come to the forest to assist Noaman and his 5 companions begin the asylum software course of and to tell border guards, who would take them to a processing centre.
Any return to extra restrictive measures, she mentioned, might go away extra individuals stranded on the Belarus aspect, and power volunteers like her to return to the times after they needed to exit covertly to assist arriving migrants.
“The zone rules will affect us very much,” she mentioned. “We will have to start hiding again.”
