Syrian Yusalf Atalla says that he feared for his life in the woods near the Polish border, where he was left in a stiff cold without water and food with difficulty breathing because a Belarusian border guard had broken his nose.
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Arriving at a security detention center in Białystok, Atalla says he was one of the migrants stranded at the border after Polish border guards forced them to return to Belarus. Migrants have been stopped there by Belarusian border guards, who previously helped migrants cross the border illegally.
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“We told them that we wanted to return to Minsk, that we did not want to continue this journey. They told us that there was no way back to Minsk. Just go to Poland,” says Atalla.
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An illegal Afghan immigrant who refused to reveal his name has also told Reuters that he is stuck at the border without the possibility of return.
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“Belarusian soldiers themselves are forcing and helping migrants to cross the border,” the man said, adding that the soldiers had told him it was a state order.
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An Afghan who left his country after the Taliban came to power says Belarusian soldiers are gathering about 30 or 40 migrants from the camps every night and forcing them to go to the border.
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“They spy on the border and, if there is no one, give them pliers and force them to cut the Polish barbed wire fence,” the migrant said.
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Thaers Rezks, 29, from Syria, told Reuters that Belarusian border guards sometimes cut holes in the fence themselves to help migrants enter Poland or Lithuania.
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Despite the difficult road, the Afghan migrant is happy to enter the European Union (EU).
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“I feel safer now. I’m sure I’ll have a good career here and my son will get a good education,” he says.
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In the past months, efforts have been made in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to send thousands of illegal immigrants from Belarus, most of them arriving in Belarus as tourists from Iraq, as part of an extensive hybrid attack on Belarus’s dictator Lukashenko.
The EU has accused the Minsk regime of seeking to avenge support for the Belarusian opposition and of sanctions against Belarus in response to last year’s violent crackdown on protests.
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