20
WORLD NEWS
‘My city is in
ruins and my
friends are all
dead. My only
hope is to
reach the EU’
Polish troops
patrol the border
to prevent
migrants, many
just children,
from crossing; in
other places
thickets of
barbed wire are
used. Residents
of Polish border
areas shine a
green light to
signal they will
give migrants
help if askedFreezing migrants are just
said Ingrida Simonyte, the prime minis-
ter of Lithuania, which has declared a
state of emergency on its border with
Belarus, following a similar move by
Poland.
“This is a problem for all of us, because
this is the eastern border of the EU.”
Simonyte said she was in little doubt
Lukashenko was co-ordinating his
actions with the Kremlin. Russia, she
noted, had pioneered the “weird and sick
tactic” being used by Lukashenko. Dur-
ing Europe’s previous migrant crisis in
2015, Russia had let migrants cross its
land border with Norway in an apparent
attempt to destabilise that country.
This weekend as many as 4,
migrants are trapped in the forest
between Belarusian and Polish border
forces after being tricked into paying
thousands of pounds for what they
thought would be an easy route into
Europe. Polish police said yesterday the
body of a young Syrian had been found
near the border, pushing the death toll
toward double figures.
The refugees’ plight has provoked a
massive humanitarian response in
Poland, exemplified by Sieczka’s group of
medical volunteers. Within days of
launching a fundraising drive last month
they had more than €80,000. One mem-
ber who owns a medical company lent
them an ambulance, though to reach
patients in more inaccessible parts of the
woods they use a Toyota 4x4 or walk for
an hour or more. Their work is further
complicated because they are not
allowed to enter the security zone several
miles deep along the border.
Poles living in the area have been
urged to display green lights outside their
homes so migrants know it is safe to
approach for food and shelter. “We, the
inhabitants of the borderland, who see
human drama and suffering, do not have
to calculate what to do,” the campaign’s
organiser, Kamil Syller, told the newspa-
per Gazeta Wyborcza. Syller, a lawyer,
added: “We must remain human.”In a wooden cabin a few miles from the
Belarus border a group of three medical
workers await a summons to the forest.
Sometimes the call comes from an aid
group, sometimes from a local resident.
They will be racing to the aid of refugees,
largely from Syria, Iraq and Yemen, who
are probably suffering from hypothermia
caused by temperatures that plunge over-
night to well below freezing.
“So far we must have treated 200 to
300 people, most of whom we can help
on the spot,” said Jakub Sieczka, an
anaesthetist from Warsaw, who in Sep-
tember set up Border Aid, a group of 33
volunteers who take it in turns to work
24-hour shifts in the cabin near Hajnowka
in southeast Poland. “But sometimes
their condition is so bad, they would die if
we just left them in the woods.”
They have taken at least 15 to hospital,
among them a 24-year-old Syrian woman
now in intensive care after her hypo-
thermia turned to pneumonia, and a
60-year-old Yemeni man with sepsis. The
youngest was just 14. Often the refugees
resist: once someone is put in an ambu-
lance, the group is required to notify bor-
der guards, who have turned up at the
hospital, forced people to leave and sent
them back to the border. “This is
completely against international law,”
Sieczka said.
The refugees are tools of President
Lukashenko. For months the Belarusian
strongman has been mounting an un-
conventional attack on the West by luring
migrants to Minsk to engineer an immi-
gration crisis for his EU neighbours.
Now, as Vladimir Putin, the Russian
president, throws his weight behind
Belarus, the standoff risks escalating far
beyond Poland, Latvia and Lithuania,
which between them share more than
650 miles of border with Belarus.
“Lukashenko can’t win, but he will
make this situation as nasty as he can,”
Peter Conradi, near the
Poland-Belarus border
The ‘weird and sick’ tactic used by Belarus’s president is widely seen as part of his Russian protector’s campaign to destabilise the EU
Such sentiments are anathema to
Poland’s conservative government,
which, along with its ally, Hungary, has
long adopted a hard line against immi-
gration and rejected the more liberal
stance of western EU members.
Like Sieczka’s medics, journalists and
aid workers are barred from entering the
border zone, but footage filmed by Polish
authorities and widely aired on state tele-
vision shows migrants pressed up hard
against rows of barbed wire, which they
sometimes attack with bolt-cutters. It is
juxtaposed with interviews in which
ordinary Poles praise the work of border
guards, who are accused by human
rights groups of heavy-handed tactics.
Some migrants who have made it
through say they did so with the help of
the Belarusians. The Polish border guard
service said yesterday Belarusian sol-
diers had torn up a section of the tempo-
rary fence erected by Poland to deter
migrants. The Poles also claimed their
opposite numbers were using lasers and
strobe lights to try to blind them.
Among those caught in the middle is
Nabil Dalo, 33, a Kurd who left his home
in Sulaymaniyah, northern Iraq, at the
end of last month with a group of friends.
An acquaintance had given him the
phone number of an agent, who
arranged his visa and flights to Minsk via
Dubai for $4,500. From there he had
planned to take a taxi to the border, cross
into Poland and, after travelling through
Germany and France, smuggle himself
into Britain to join friends and family
already there.
Instead he and his friends were
stopped at the frontier by Polish soldiers,
who threw tear gas when they tried to
break down part of the fence. Behind
them were Belarusian soldiers, who
refused to let them go back.
On Thursday Dalo was spending his
fifth day in the woods. Around him were
hundreds of families. “I can see a lot of
women and children,” he said, speaking
quietly so nearby soldiers would notNot even
a mouse
can pass
these
fences
He will
make
this as
nasty as
he can
hear him. “There is lot of smoke because
we made fires. It is so cold.
“There are four fences, and two of
them are very, very tight — not even a
mouse can go through. They have very
intensive security there. The Polish sol-
diers are just ten metres away.”
Britain and other European countries
have strongly condemned Belarus, which
began to weaponise the migrant issue in
summer after the EU imposed sanctions
in response to rigged elections a year ear-
lier had that reconfirmed Lukashenko as
president after more than a quarter of
century rule.
Pavel Latushka, a former Belarusian
ambassador turned critic of the regime,
claimed it had trained Afghans and Iraqis
to carry out armed attacks on the Polish
border, with the assistance of the GRU,
Russia’s military intelligence service.
Last week the Kremlin sent 250 para-
troopers to conduct joint manoeuvres
with the Belarusian army close to the
Polish border. On Thursday Lukashenko
threatened to cut off supplies of Russian
gas flowing through his country to
Europe.
Britain has dispatched a dozen Royal
Engineers to advise the Polish army on
building stronger fences, the MoD said.
The deployment of the troops from their
base 75 miles west at Orzysz, although
“limited to engineering support”, is the
first by any of Poland’s Nato allies.
Five hundred miles to the east, about
90,000 Russian troops are stationed near
the frontier with Ukraine. On Wednesday
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state,
voiced concern that Russia might be
preparing to invade, as it did in 2014.
Putin clearly relishes the West’s dis-
comfort, but there are limits to his sup-
port for Lukashenko, whom he sees as
something of a loose cannon. Putin said
yesterday his ally might have “just got too
emotional” when he made the gas threat,
adding: “I want everyone to know: we
have absolutely nothing to do with this.”
The Russian leader also claimed AngelaMerkel, the German leader, might be pre-
pared to talk to Lukashenko, but there
was no confirmation of this from Berlin.
The EU appears in no mood to make
concessions to Lukashenko and is likely
to agree tomorrow on reprisals that will
reportedly include sweeping sanctions
against scores of Belarusian officials as
well as on Cham Wings, a Syrian airline
accused of flying migrants from Damas-
cus to Minsk, and on a hotel in the Belaru-
sian capital where many of them stay.
This reflects a conviction by European
governments that stopping flights is the
only way of stopping Lukashenko. Under
pressure to act, Turkey banned all Syrian,
Yemeni and Iraqi citizens on Friday from
taking planes to Minsk. The Iraqi foreign
ministry also halted all direct flights to
Belarus and said it would organise trips to
collect citizens who wished to return
home from the Belarus-Poland border.
For the past months the EU has been
locked in an escalating dispute with the
Polish government over what Brussels
has claimed is its disregard for the rule of
law, provoking a political crisis some fear
could end in “Polexit” — an idea dis-
missed by Warsaw as “fake news”.
The country’s pariah status seemed
forgotten on Wednesday, when Charles
Michel, the president of the European
Council and no fan of the Polish govern-
ment, travelled to Warsaw to express soli-
darity with the government and pose for
photographs with Mateusz Morawiecki,
the prime minister.
Asked about the apparent mixed mes-
sages from Brussels, Simonyte said the
two issues should be treated separately.
“Whatever debate is going on at EU level
about the rule of law or other issues,
[Belarus’s activity on the border] is a
problem not for Poland, but is about put-
ting pressure on the whole EU to lift sanc-
tions that have been introduced for very
significant breaches of human rights.”
@Peter_Conradi
Additional reporting: Louise Callaghan,
Tim Ripley and Stella MartanyDMITRY LEBEDEV/POLARIS/EYEVINE; SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES; MON/REUTERS
WORLD NEWS
my friends there are all
dead,” Osho said. Soz, who
wants to become an engineer,
said: “We can’t go back and
we can’t stay in Minsk. We
have no other choice but to
cross the border.”
On Friday, outside the
Galleria shopping centre,
there were groups of
Belarusian men in plain
clothes who appeared to be
responsible for organising
transport to the border.
Osho and Soz had already
made one unsuccessful
attempt to reach the EU. After
reaching the Polish border,
men in uniform who they
believed to be Belarusian
police officers put them on a
bus that took them and other
migrants to the border with
Lithuania. It was unclear why.
“When we were at the
border, we didn’t have
enough food and water, ItA shopping centre in Minsk is
an unlikely launchpad for an
international crisis.
Yet every day for weeks,
clusters of people carrying
heavy rucksacks have
gathered at the same spot in
the Belarusian capital in
plummeting temperatures
preparing for journeys to the
European Union’s eastern
borders. Many are fleeing
poverty or conflict in the
Middle East, Asia or Africa.
Osho, a 27-year-old ethnic
Kurd from Iraq, said he was
hoping to build a new life
with his wife, Soz, 26, in
Germany. Jalawla, their
hometown, witnessed heavy
fighting between Kurdish
forces and Islamic State.
“My city has been
destroyed by terrorists andChristina Korsak Minsk
Marc Bennetts MoscowTASS/GETTY IMAGESwas very cold there. I felt
sorry for the children. I saw
an eight-month-old child
there,” Soz said.
At least eight migrants
have died at the border in the
thick forest. Some say they
have been assaulted by both
Belarusian and Polish border
guards. Belarusian security
forces have also been accused
of firing over the heads ofAn Afghan citizen told
Reuters last week that
Belarusian border guards had
given migrants bolt-cutters
and forced them to cut
through the razor-wire fence
on the Polish border.
Lukashenko’s regime has
been attempting to blame the
EU for the crisis, while
expressing what critics say is
mock concern for the
migrants. This week, appeals
for food and warm clothing
were sent to private
companies, while state
employees were also
encouraged to donate. Many
locals are sceptical.
“I’m not against helping at
all, but they were driven here
and now, as always, it is the
people who are being
forced to pick up the
pieces,” a schoolteacher told
the Zerkalo opposition
website.a growing humanitarian
crisis, with temperatures
predicted to fall to -4C this
week. Many are staying in
hotels, but others have been
spending nights in tents in
city parks in Minsk before
attempting to reach the EU.
A shop assistant at an H&M
store in the shopping centre
in Minsk said migrants had
been coming in to buy warm
clothes. She said they were
polite but she was angered by
scenes of people trying to
break down the fence on the
Polish border.
“I feel sorry for them but
when they try to destroy
everything with sticks and to
cross the border illegally, this
sparks a negative attitude. I
don’t know what is
happening in their countries,
or what they are fleeing from,
but they behave like savages
[at the border].”Migrants are
using Minsk as a
staging post on
their trek to the
eastern borders
of the EUmigrants to drive them back
towards the volatile border
zone when they tried to
return to Minsk.
“I know what’s going on at
the border. I’m afraid, but
this won’t stop me,” said Aka,
an ethnic Kurd in his mid-
twenties who had paid
$3,000 for visas and flights.
“It’s Europe or death.”
Aid groups have warned of