Afghans on the Polish-Belarusian Border: Lukashenka's Blackmail and Poland's Fear | Europe and Europeans: news and analytics

Paulina Bovnik is a doctor. She works in a hospital 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border. What is happening there now, Paulina considers monstrous and can hardly hold back tears when she has to talk about it. A few weeks ago, a group of Afghans were stuck at the border: Polish border guards blocked the refugees’ way inland. And the Belarusians do not let them back.

Paulina Bovnik is trying to help these people. They lack the essentials – food and water. Many of them are sick. They all look tired and desperate. “I remember the day when I got there and found out that someone had lost consciousness. You could see a person lying unconscious on the ground,” the doctor describes the situation. “I grabbed my medical case and ran there. I asked the border guards, so that they let me in. But I was not allowed. ”

State of emergency on the border made refugees hostage

Such scenes at the border happen all the time, and it’s not just about Afghans, says Paulina Bovnik. On one occasion, volunteers were not allowed to hand over a blanket to a family with small children. On another occasion, the border guards tried to prohibit all communication with refugees. What’s going on there now? The doctor is very worried about this situation. Since the moment when the state of emergency was introduced at the border, neither volunteers nor journalists have access to the three-kilometer strip along the border where the refugees are.

Doctor Paulina Bovnik

“The government’s decision to isolate the territory is a scandal,” says Polish opposition leader Frantisek Sterzewski. The deputy was at the border and saw for himself what was happening there. “It’s ridiculous to declare a state of emergency because of 30 Afghans,” Sterzewski said indignantly. But the Polish border service proceeds from the assumption that 10,000 illegal migrants will try to get through Belarus to the EU.

Sterzewski says that it is not about allowing everyone to cross the border, but about the possibility for refugees to apply and legally enter the EU. “The government wants to use the state of emergency only to hide how inhumanely refugees are treated at the border,” the oppositionist says. And the authorities, he said, want journalists not to be able to write critical articles on this topic.

The warnings of the Polish government about possible provocations in connection with the forthcoming joint exercises of Russia and Belarus in this region are not an argument for the deputy: “Such military maneuvers take place regularly.” The opposition politician himself made headlines when he tried to pass packages with food and medicine to Afghan refugees, bypassing border guards. “The point is to help people at any cost, because the Polish state refuses any humanitarian aid to them,” he says.

Polish society split over refugee issue

In government circles, Sterzhevsky’s behavior is called grotesque, shameful, discrediting the opposition. In general, the discussion about the introduction of a state of emergency at the border polarizes Polish society. Those who oppose such a regime are called extremists or accomplices of Belarusian propaganda on social networks.

Polish border guards near the tents of Afghan refugees

In the Polish parliament, the majority supported the imposition of a state of emergency. “Belarus and Russia are waging a hybrid war,” said Jaroslav Krajewski, an MP from the ruling Law and Justice Party (ZiS). And the EU must counter this: “Our intelligence services have information that clearly shows that the threat from both countries is growing. And that the danger of chaos and destabilization in the EU is a real threat.” It is all the more important to secure the external borders of the EU, the Polish leadership believes.

The European Commission sees the situation in a similar way. When asked by DW, they replied that the situation on the border with Belarus is a challenge: “We reject all attempts by other states to incite illegal migration to the EU or tolerate it.” As for the introduction of a state of emergency, the European Commission promises to check how adequate the measures taken are.

“I’m not a politician,” says doctor Paulina Bovnik. But she also wonders how the evacuation of Afghans from Kabul relates to the fate of a group of people stuck on the border. After everything she saw at the border, she was disappointed by the position of Brussels: “I came to the conclusion that the EU has betrayed its ideals. And this saddens me very much.”

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