In the border areas of eastern Poland, mysterious things are happening, and Deputy Mayor Konrad Sikora does not like it.
The ever-increasing number of military trucks rumbling through his city around the clock has begun to cover their license plates. And a two-kilometer-wide strip along the border with Belarus has been blocked off to unauthorized persons.
It is almost as if they want to hide something, says Sikora as he leads us through almost empty streets in the direction of the fire station in Michalowo.
What he wants to show is the village’s humanitarian mindset, in the midst of what many fear could be a refugee catastrophe.
– DISCLAIMER: Deputy Mayor Konrad Sikora is concerned about the Polish authorities’ handling of the refugee crisis. Photo: Aage Aune, TV 2.
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– This is our inventory. Here we receive relief shipments from all over Poland. New loads arrive every single day, says the deputy mayor proudly.
Pingpong
Michalowo has become a small sensation in Poland after the local authorities began a fundraising campaign to help migrants at the border.
For this is people the country government does not want to know of.
In their thousands, they sit and wait for a chance to get through the barbed wire Polish soldiers have set up.
If they are caught, they will, according to a new law passed by the Polish parliament, be chased straight back.
– Belarusian soldiers are waiting there with weapons and demanding that they return to Poland. It will be a bit like a ping pong match between Poland and Belarus, Sikora stated.
He believes that the government in Warsaw should now open its eyes to what is happening and build refugee camps instead of hoping that the problem disappears by itself. For now, the harsh winter will soon set in in the Polish forests.
– This will end in tragedy. If no one does anything soon, when spring comes we will have hundreds of corpses out in the woods here, he says to TV 2.
Strictly forbidden
On Wednesday, TV 2’s team tried to get to the border to observe the situation with their own eyes. About two kilometers away, we were stopped by heavily armed police and chased back, without any further explanation.
The so-called security zone is in fact set up to not have witnesses to the atrocities that take place there, says Marysia Zlonkiewicz, who is the spokesperson for the “Border Group”, an association of volunteers who want to help migrants.
– This can definitely be called a humanitarian crisis. And we aid workers believe that if we are not allowed to enter the forbidden zone soon, the bodies will start to pile up, Zlonkiewicz tells TV 2.
– VOLUNTEER: Marysia Zlonkiewicz is a spokeswoman for an association of voluntary organizations that try to help the refugees. Photo: Aage Aune, TV 2.
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But despite the massive guard duty, some manage to sneak into Poland and on to Germany. And it is these people the “Border Group” is now focusing on.
Through their network, the migrants have been informed how to contact the Polish volunteers, and they usually make a noise at night when they have run out of food, water and medicine.
Night to Thursday, the alarm went off again. A group of 30 Iraqis, including 16 children and a heavily pregnant woman, sat wet, exhausted and hungry in a remote swamp and needed help.
– The whole action lasted for six hours. This was the heaviest of our interventions so far. We have never seen anything like it in our working lives, writes the doctors who came to their rescue on Facebook.
Many thousands will enter
Poland and the Baltic countries accuses Belarus’ dictator Alexander Lukashenko has launched a refugee crisis in retaliation for EU sanctions against the country in May.
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STATE OF EMERGENCY: Over the past year, a rapidly increasing number of migrants have flooded the border between Belarus and Poland. This has led to a state of emergency and a press ban along the 480-kilometer-long border. Local organizations and ordinary people will help the needy, the government of Poland will send everyone back. Photo: Aage Aune / TV 2
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STATE OF EMERGENCY: Over the past year, a rapidly increasing number of migrants have flooded the border between Belarus and Poland. This has led to a state of emergency and a press ban along the 480-kilometer-long border. Local organizations and ordinary people will help the needy, the government of Poland will send everyone back. Photo: Aage Aune / TV 2
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STATE OF EMERGENCY: Over the past year, a rapidly increasing number of migrants have flooded the border between Belarus and Poland. This has led to a state of emergency and a press ban along the 480-kilometer-long border. Local organizations and ordinary people will help the needy, the government of Poland will send everyone back. Photo: Aage Aune / TV 2
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STATE OF EMERGENCY: Over the past year, a rapidly increasing number of migrants have flooded the border between Belarus and Poland. This has led to a state of emergency and a press ban along the 480-kilometer-long border. Local organizations and ordinary people will help the needy, the government of Poland will send everyone back. Photo: Aage Aune / TV 2
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STATE OF EMERGENCY: Over the past year, a rapidly increasing number of migrants have flooded the border between Belarus and Poland. This has led to a state of emergency and a press ban along the 480-kilometer-long border. Local organizations and ordinary people will help the needy, the government of Poland will send everyone back. Photo: Aage Aune / TV 2
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STATE OF EMERGENCY: Over the past year, a rapidly increasing number of migrants have flooded the border between Belarus and Poland. This has led to a state of emergency and a press ban along the 480-kilometer-long border. Local organizations and ordinary people will help the needy, the government of Poland will send everyone back. Photo: Aage Aune / TV 2
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After first arriving by plane from the Middle East, Belarusian soldiers almost herd the migrants to the border, and tell them how they can best get over to neighboring countries, it is claimed.
If the migrants are stopped and sent back, the Belarusians demand that they try again.
– Since we do not get into the border area, we can only estimate how many people are involved. But we think there are several hundred on the Polish side and many thousands on the Belarusian side of the border, says Zlonkiewicz in the Border Group.
Poland’s refugee policy is now being criticized both at home and by EU politicians. At the same time, neighboring countries, especially Germany, are also aware that a new wave of refugees similar to the one we saw in 2015 may be imminent and that the Poles have so far managed to keep the situation under control.
In Germany, the number of asylum seekers has increased by as much as 35 percent compared to last year and German authorities now offer to send soldiers to Poland to help guard the border.
TV 2 has tried to contact Poland’s border guard service to get a comment on the situation in the border areas, but has not received a response to our inquiry.
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