The Afghans marooned on Poland-Belarus border
The Afghans marooned in no-man’s land: Belarus forces migrants into Poland as part of plot to inflict humanitarian crisis on the EU – but Poles REFUSE to take them sparking stand-off at border
Poland has sent soldiers to its border with Belarus to stop stream of migrants from Afghanistan and IraqA group of 32 Afghan refugees have been stranded on Poland-Belarus border for the last 12 daysNeither Poland nor Belarus willing to back down and allow them into their country, with soldiers standing by The EU has condemned Belarus for its ‘aggressive behaviour’ over illegal migrant border crossingsIn a statement, the body declared that the crossings were a ‘direct attack’ on EU stabilityMigrant movements spiked from Belarus after sanctions were slapped on the country following election
The fate of a group of 32 refugees who fled Afghanistan is in the balance after having been stranded for the last 12 days in an area between the Poland-Belarus border as the two countries engage in a standoff.
Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia accuse Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of sending migrants across their borders with his country in what they have called an act of ‘hybrid war.’
Their borders also form part of the European Union’s external border, and the countries believe Lukashenko is acting in revenge for sanctions the EU imposed over his disputed reelection and crackdown on dissent.
The stand-off near the village of Usnarz Gorny is one of several similar incidents along Belarus’s borders with EU members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
All three countries are preventing the migrants from crossing to make asylum claims, saying they should go through embassies in Belarus or official border checkpoints.
Most of the recent migrants traveling from Belarus are believed to be originally from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fate of a group of 32 refugees who fled Afghanistan is in the balance after having been stranded for the last 12 days in an area between the Poland-Belarus border as the two countries engage in a standoff. Pictured: An armed Polish border guard watches over the group of refugees, who have a line of Belarusian border guards stood behind them
The Lithuanian border force recently released footage which shows Belarus police in riot gear violently pushing migrants over their border
Polish refugee rights group, Fundacja Ocalenie, called on Polish authorities to allow the people to apply for refugee status in Poland, saying they have the right to do so. Polish authorities are refusing to let them in, and Belarusian guards will not let them return.
‘In accordance with the law in force in Poland, each of these people should be allowed to submit an application for protection,’ Piotr Bystrianin, the president of the group’s management board, said in a statement today.
Fundacja Ocalenie said it arrived at the spot where the migrants were stuck, near the village of Usnarz Gorny, on Wednesday to bring them items such as food, tents, sleeping bags and power banks. They were not given access at first but were successful on Thursday.
Tahmina Rajabova, a member of the foundation, reported speaking to the migrants and learning that they are 32 people from Afghanistan who all want to apply for refugee status in Poland. They included a 15-year-old girl and some people who were ill.
A few days earlier, about a dozen people from Iraq – women and small children – were stranded with them, but Belarusian authorities allowed them back into Belarus, Rajabova said.
Armed members of Belarusian security forces do not let them return to Belarus while Polish border guards (pictured) and army officers prevent them from continuing their journey across Poland
Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia accuse Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of sending migrants across their borders with his country in what they have called an act of ‘hybrid war’
‘It is an inhumane and scandalous situation that Poland, together with Belarus, condemns these people to imprisonment on the border, in conditions that offend human dignity and are life-threatening,’ said Maciej Konieczny, a left-wing Polish lawmaker who joined the humanitarian workers at the border.
Poland has sent soldiers to its border with Belarus to stop a stream of Afghan and Iraqi migrants that are being forced across the border as part of a ‘blackmail’ plot by the country’s President who is an ally of Vladimir Putin.
It comes after fellow EU member Lithuania released video footage of body armor-clad Belarusian soldiers pushing a group of migrants across the border onto their territory.
The migrants are believed to have made their way into Belarus overland through either Russia or Russian-controlled Eastern Ukraine after making it out of Afghanistan to Iran on a well-trodden people smuggling route.
Poland said Wednesday it had deployed nearly 1,000 troops to its border with Belarus to help border guards cope with a surge of migrants. Pictured: File image of Lithuanian army soldiers installing razer wire on its border with Belarus on July 9, 2021
The stand-off near the village of Usnarz Gorny (pictured) is one of several similar incidents along Belarus’s borders with EU members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland
Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki vowed Thursday that his country would stand firm and block migrants, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan, who have been seeking to enter from neighboring Belarus.
He said: ‘(The migrants) are people with whom I sincerely sympathize, but they are an instrument, a tool in the hands of Mr. Lukashenko,’ Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, told a news conference.
He vowed that Poland would not succumb to ‘this type of blackmail.’
Hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to the border and at least 60 miles of barbed wire have been laid as Poland seeks to prevent the migrants from entering.
Belarusian border guards stand behind migrants believed to be from Afghanistan sitting on the ground in the small village of Usnarz Gorny northeastern Poland after they were forced over the border by Belarus
The migrants are believed to be continuing their journey to Western Europe after making it into Iran on a well-trodden smuggler trail
Thousands of Afghans are fleeing the country every day, smugglers have said, mostly on three routes all of which begin in Herat – a smuggling hub. The most direct, expensive, and dangerous route goes from there to Tehran via a crossing at Kohsan where migrants have to swim a deadly river, but stand the least chance of getting caught. A second route goes south to Zaranj before the crossing into Iran, to a safehouse in Kerman. From there, the migrants are taken to Tehran when the coast is clear of guards. The third and most-common route goes via Pakistan to Iran – it is the cheapest, but has the largest chance of capture
The European Union has also condemned what it called Belarus’ ‘aggressive behaviour’ in organising the illegal border crossings with migrants into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland with the aim of destabilising the 27-nation bloc.
So far this year, more than 4,100 asylum-seekers, most of them from Iraq, have illegally crossed from Belarus into Lithuania.
That’s 50 times more than during all of 2020 and they’re being sheltered in temporary camps across the Baltic EU member.
It comes after the Lithuanian border force released video footage in which it claims Belarusian police officers in riot gear illegally pushed migrants over their border.
Poland said Wednesday it had deployed nearly 1,000 troops to its border with Belarus to help border guards cope with a surge of migrants – again mostly from Iraq – who were trying to enter the country.
‘This aggressive behaviour is unacceptable and amounts to a direct attack aimed at destabilising and pressurising the EU,’ said a statement by Slovenia, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency until the end of the year, after emergency talks among the bloc’s interior ministers.
‘The European Union will need to further consider its response to these situations in order to increase its effectiveness and to deter any future attempts to instrumentalise illegal migration in this manner,’ the statement said.
The migrant movements spiked dramatically after the EU slapped sanctions on Belarus officials.
In the footage, a line of migrants could be seen being directed by a large group of police personnel
Mateusz Morawiecki vowed Thursday that his country would stand firm and block migrants, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan , who have been seeking to enter from neighboring Belarus
A long row of police officers, donning riot gear and holding shields could be seen in formation in the footage
The migrant movements spiked dramatically after the EU slapped sanctions on Belarus officials. The measures were imposed after President Alexander Lukashenko (pictured) ordered a crackdown on opponents and protesters after claiming victory in a vote last year that the West denounced as rigged
The measures were imposed after President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a crackdown on opponents and protesters after claiming victory in a vote last year that the West denounced as rigged. His main election challenger fled to Lithuania.
Slovenia said EU nations are ‘determined to take all necessary measures to effectively protect all the EU external borders, by counteracting Belarus’ aggression.’
The issue has become more acute in the light of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan that was completed on Sunday, with many Afghans trying to flee the country, fearing reprisals.
EU member states are nervous about a replay of Europe’s 2015/16 migration crisis when the chaotic arrival of more than a million people from the Middle East stretched security and welfare systems and fuelled support for far-right groups.
The ministers, without direct reference to Afghanistan, said there was ‘a need to strengthen the entire external border’ of the EU to prevent illegal crossings in the future.
No details about how that might happen were provided.
Many of the migrants were believed to have arrived in Belarus by plane on commercial flights from Iraq. Those flights have stopped for now, perhaps in part due to the EU’s threat to impose visa restrictions on Iraqi citizens and officials.
Still, Lithuania’s border guard released video footage on Wednesday which it said reveals that migrants are being pushed across the border into EU territory by Belarus riot police.
Another video showed several people cross into Lithuania and immediately return to Belarus to be filmed by Belarus officials.
After talks with Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte on Wednesday, EU Parliament President David Sassoli accused Lukashenko of ‘exploiting these poor people, men and women.’
‘I have seen these outrageous actions when officials push people across the border. It is both an issue of human rights, and also a question of protecting the border of the EU,’ Sassoli said. ‘It is an organized activity of the Lukashenko regime.’
On Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas accused Lukashenko of launching a ‘hybrid attack’ against the bloc by channelling migrants to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland in retaliation for the EU’s sanctions.
Kallas said ‘this is no refugee crisis, but this is a hybrid attack on the European Union.’
Merkel said she would raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.
Belarus depends heavily on Russian energy supplies and Moscow has authorized loans to prop up the country’s beleaguered economy.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been fleeing their homes in Afghanistan with thousands being smuggled out of the country each day, which has sparked fears of a new refugee crisis.
An Afghan family on August 12 at the border crossing with Pakistan in Spin Boldack waits to cross after the border was shut when the Taliban took control of it
Smugglers in the city of Zaranj – a border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran that was captured by the Taliban two weeks ago – say the number of people looking to leave the country has trebled in recent months.
One smuggler, speaking to MailOnline, said that on a ‘good day’ he takes now 150 people across the border to Tehran compared to 50 in recent years – with many hoping to escape Iran into Turkey and then onwards to Europe and the UK, where they intend to claim asylum.
Most migrants make their way to the smuggling hub of Herat before they are either taken north to the Khosan border crossing with Iran, or south to Zaranj.
The northern route is the most expensive and also the most dangerous – with migrants forced to swim a river and then crawl for two hours to avoid security cameras – but carries the least risk of getting caught. A second route goes from Zaranj directly into a Iran and to a safehouse in Kerman, before a final journey to Tehran.
The third route – the cheapest and most commonly used – goes into Iran via Pakistan, then to Kerman and Tehran. It is also the safest route, but carries the greatest chance of getting caught.
Armed members of the Polish Border Guards arrive at the border with Belarus as the country attempts to stem the flow of migrants being transported in
The armed soldiers arrived near the border with Belarus on 20 August, 2021 in Usnarz Gorny, Poland
Frontex, the EU’s migration agency, said just yesterday that migration through the Balkans almost-doubled in the first half of this year compared to last, driven mostly by an increase in Afghans and Syrians. That prompted Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi to warned the EU is ‘not ready’ for another migrant crisis.
The Foreign Office and Border Force refused to comment about whether they fear an influx to Britain of Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban.
Speaking previously to the MailOnline by phone from Zaranj, one smuggler said: ‘I and my team here used to send around 50 or even fewer people to Iran on our pickup trucks each day for years it now stands at 100 or 150 on a good day.
‘I should thank Trump, Biden and the Americans. Many of these people are highly educated, sometimes I regret sending them out, but it may save their lives.
‘We are responsible for getting these people to Teheran, and our job ends there.
‘But I know through talking with many of them that their final destination is not Iran. Many have plans for Europe in their heads. Thousands are being sent out of Afghanistan each day through this city.’
But the perilous 1,500 mile journey across Iran holds its own dangers for the refugees as they must negotiate mountain ranges and canyons as they head west.
One migrant who spoke to MailOnline before leaving Afghanistan for Iran told us his final destination was Italy.
A second said he would go anywhere, but admitted that the UK would be top of his list, saying: ‘That’s always my favourite – I may decide to go there if possible.’
The smuggler explained the circuitous route followed by the caravan of pickup trucks carrying the migrants.
‘We board around 20 to 25 people to each pickup, then we go through the desert towards the Pakistani border.
‘After the border, we switch vehicles and hand over to our Pakistani colleagues. They transfer the people to near the Iranian border.
‘This first stage takes around 24 hours. The drivers go as fast as possible. before reaching Iran, the people will have to walk for 3 hours, until they pass a deep ditch that the Iranians dug to mark the border.
‘Once in Iran, the migrants board another vehicle and again speed through the Iranian desert, usually to the city of Kerman where the smugglers have guest houses. They lie low until the road is quiet with few security forces. Then they board around 12 people in each Peugeot pickup and head for Teheran. Added the smuggler:
‘In the capital, again we have guesthouse, where we hold the refugees until they pay our money. After their relatives send us money, we let them go.’
The whole journey depends on the situation along the road, some days, they reach Teheran in three days and some in five.
It costs around 3 to 3,5 million Iranian Toman [$130] per person. Other smugglers will handle the journey from Teheran to Van in eastern Turkey.
But the climate in Turkey is becoming increasingly hostile for the refugees, with right-wing political parties threatening to ‘send home’ the refugees, whether Syrian, Kurdish or Afghan, who have swelled their population already.
A forbidding 3-metre high Trump-style concrete wall is being built on the border near Van and will stretch for 40 miles along the rugged borderland.
Along its length will be so-called ‘smart towers’ equipped with infra-red detection devices to spot people moving at night.
