Filenews 28 November 2021
Smugglers told two friends from Syria, 34-year-old Anash Kanaan and 36-year-old Muain al-Hadi, that they would easily cross into Germany from Belarus. They would simply have to pay €3, 000 each to a mediator in Turkey.
But the safe roads from Belarus to Poland shown to them by the smugglers were closed. After more than a week spent by the two friends in the frozen forests on the border, a smuggler drove them to a Polish village, where they were spotted by the police and sent back to Belarus.
Back to Belarus
"It's as if our money has evaporated," says al-Hadi, who is now in a field near the Polish city of Orla, after he managed to cross the border again. But now he can't walk anymore because his feet have swollen from the cold.
His childhood friend Kanaan adds: "It's all lies. Everyone leads you to roads where you may die. And in the end they tell you that they have no responsibility for you. He died, they don't care. All they want is your money."
Shortly afterwards, the two Syrians—who said they wanted to apply for asylum in Poland rather than reach Germany—were re-arrested by Polish border guards and taken to a detention centre.
"More and more people are realizing that they were led into a trap and that what they were promised was lies," says Maricia Zlojevic, a Polish activist of With Bread and Salt.
Harder to get through
The crisis on the Belarusian border, where thousands of migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have gathered hoping to enter the EU, has been going on for months.
Poland and the EU accuse Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko of encouraging migrants to reach his country and cross the border irregularly to avenge the West for its sanctions on Minsk for human rights violations.
Belarus denies this and replies that the EU is to blame for the humanitarian crisis on its borders.
Migrants, for their part, find it more difficult to enter the EU.
Under pressure from Brussels, many airlines have restricted their flights from Middle Eastern countries to Belarus, while travel agencies in the region have stopped selling tickets to the former Soviet republic.
Poland has deployed more than 20,000 border guards, soldiers and police officers to the border with Belarus, while Belarusian authorities have transferred many migrants back to Minsk to repatriate them.
Poland's border guard announced that migrants' attempts to cross the border have been reduced to about 200 a day from about 500.
Moreover, more than 300 migrant smugglers have been arrested in Poland since August, according to police figures. These come from countries such as Germany, Sweden, Ukraine and Georgia.
As crossing the border has become more difficult, smugglers have raised prices to about €6,000 per person, migrants told Reuters.
"No return"
"Every day things change at the border. Every day there is a new obstacle, more guards, more people," says Syrian immigrant Khaled Zane al-Din, 45, from an open migrant centre in the Polish city of Bialystok.
He and his five relatives gave €18,000 to the smugglers who promised to take them to a safe apartment, with a car ahead to ensure there were no police checks. And that turned out to be a lie and they were arrested.
A Polish army spokesman said the increased security measures are making migrants more desperate, with many using force to try to cross the border, mostly further south, with the help of Belarusians who give them tools to tear down the fence.
Despite the constantly falling low temperatures and the increased risk of being arrested, migrants do not seem willing to give up, Zlonkijevic points out.
"A lot of these people have nothing they could return to," he explains. "Families were charged or sold their apartment or home. There is no going back."
Source: ANA - MPA