'Humanitarian crisis': Afghan refugees stuck at border amid Poland-Belarus standoff

Fate of dozens of Afghan migrants who fled the Taliban’s siege of Kabul appears bleak as they remain trapped near a small village of Usnarz Górny on the respective border between Poland and Belarus amid the political standoff. Migrants attempting to coerce their way into the European Union have often found themselves stranded ‘in no man's land’ as Polish police prevent them from stepping foot on EU soil, and bizarre standoffs between Polish and Belarusian border guards have ensued, Europe’s RFL reports. 

A migrant on the border with Belarus last week, claiming to be from Afghanistan, was caught in a political feud between the armed Polish serviceman and Belarusian police as the two countries have long opted a reluctant approach against the Middle Eastern refugee influx, prohibiting them from entering the EU illegally from Belarus. Poland accuses Minsk of deliberating the refugee crisis in retaliation to the economic sanctions imposed on the Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime by Brussels, Belarus, meanwhile denies allegations. 

As many as 32 Afghan refugees including women, men, and a child of 15 years old have been stranded at the muddy patch of the forested border area for at least three weeks now with no food supply, appropriate shelter, or access to clean water, a Polish NGO revealed. The migrant group, which has international protection in Warsaw, is not allowed in by the border guards who have been prohibiting the migrants from entering the EU. To add to their misery, they are neither allowed to step back on the Belarusian border by the Minsk military forces. A 53-year-old Afghan woman has now fallen critically ill, and is in dire need of medical assistance, according to Ocalenie Foundation. 

"This area between the Poland and Belarus borders is not a migration issue, but part of the aggression of Lukashenko toward Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, with the aim to destabilize the EU," Ylva Johansson, the European commissioner for home affairs, said in an interview with the newspaper The New York Times.

[Activists on August 23 behind coils of barbed wire at the headquarters of Poland's Border Guards to protest the stance taken by the authorities. Credit: AP]

In the footage that emerged earlier last week, a Polish MP Franek Sterczewski was seen running, making efforts to break through the military and police forces at the border to deliver a large blue bag of medicine and other supplies to the Afghan migrants. He was seen chased by the security forces. Reports suggest Poland managed to deliver portable toilets at the Polish border where Afghan refugees have been, quite literally, seated between Belarusian border guards on the one side and Polish border guards, army, and police on the other watching over them. 

The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe condemned the act as a violation of Art 3 ECHR and has called for immediate action to ensure the rights of the Afghan refugees kept hostage by the security forces at the Polish-Belarusian border. The Polish armed forces remained undismayed in geopolitical retaliation to Belarusian despots for the establishment of migration routes to Europe. Forces on both sides indulged in rampant breach of the law as Polish servicemen quelled asylum seekers from later demanding national and EU-level rights for settling to Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland flaring the refugee crisis. 

“States have the legitimate right to manage their borders in accordance with international law. However, they must also respect human rights, including the right to seek asylum,” the UNHCR said in a statement.

[AP Photo/Mateusz Wodziński]

Poland and the three Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia — accuse Belarus of pushing migrants across the EU's eastern border as the two sides have waged a “hybrid war” barring the refugees from both Afghanistan and Iraq from proceeding on the territories on either side. FT had earlier reported that the EU has been threatening charter companies and ordinary airlines flying between Belarus and Iraq, accusing them of smuggling “illegal migrants” for the Belarusian regime. 

“Using immigrants to destabilize neighboring countries constitutes a clear breach of the international law and qualifies as a hybrid attack against Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and thus against the entire European Union,” Poland and three baltic nations said in a joint statement.

Image: Google Maps

UN’s Refugee Agency's spokesperson Shabia Mantoo meanwhile told a presser that the UN has been closely monitoring the situation. “We have been very concerned by developments at the borders resulting in people being stranded for days,” Mantoo told reporters. Polish refugee rights group Fundacja Ocalenie asked the Polish authorities to allow the people to apply for refugee status in Poland as they have been trapped for days with the Polish army not allowing them to enter and Belarus forces not letting them return.

“In accordance with the law 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.

A deputy foreign minister in Poland, Pawel Jablonski, was quoted saying by the Associated Press that the Afghan migrants were still on the “Belarus side of the border strip, where they have been brought by the organizers of this procedure in Belarus.” Further, he said, Belarus has “full responsibility for this situation” accusing the regime of “destabilizing the situation inside the European Union.”

“It is the responsibility of the Polish government to protect the national border, which is also the EU border,” Jablonski stressed. 

With the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, Poland mobilized hundreds of soldiers to the border which was reinforced with barbed wires as the EU nation accused  Minsk of “opening the gates”. Border guards have flooded the frontier as they “sealed” border with Belarus to deter illegal immigration to Poland,  Lithuania, and other Baltic nations, reports suggest. “It’s a humanitarian crisis right now,” Mariana Wartecka, a spokesperson for the NGO Ocalenie Foundation said in her statement saying that the border guards have refused access to health professionals. The Afghan migrants are drinking water from a stream, and “surviving on grass and leaves” the NGO stated as they were stranded in extremely inhumane conditions with no intermittent food supply. 

“They could not resist the guards who always carried large guns,” a member of a charity Minority Rights Group told The Times.   

[Refugees held hostage by armed guards at Poland border. Credit: Twitter/@ShiFu_EU]

Border Guards 'violated' the Geneva Convention

Both the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, have asked Poland to allow a small group of migrants into the EU. "The response of a member state of the Council of Europe cannot be to reject these people, to deny them access to asylum procedures, or to keep them locked up in a humanitarian emergency situation," Commissioner Dunja Mijatović said in a statement earlier on Sunday.

Polish Human Rights Ombudsman issued a statement, saying that the Border Guard had violated the Geneva Convention by not accepting the Afghan refugee’s verbal declarations that are fleeing atrocities back in their homeland. 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki responded saying that while he sympathized with Afghan migrants, Poland “will not succumb to this type of blackmail” and that the migrants were "a tool in the hands of Lukashenko.” Poland’s Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced building a new wall along its border with Belarus and ramping up the soldiers as it asserted that at least 2,100 migrants have already tried to enter Poland illegally from Belarus so far in August.