As refugees enter Poland, they receive an SMS: Back to Minsk! | Migration News

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Sokolka, Poland – As foreigners approach the Polish-Belarusian border, they automatically – as this journalist did – receive a simple and clear text message on their phones.
“The Polish border is sealed. BLR authorities lied to you. Back to Minsk! ” He reads the SMS, referring to Belarus.
The text also included a warning not to take “pills” from Belarusian soldiers, a reference to unverified reports that Belarusian border guards gave them pills containing methadone to “survive” the dangerous passage on the other side.
The message has been sent to thousands of refugees and migrants who have tried to break through the border from Belarus and enter Poland in recent weeks, rights groups say they are using as a tool in the long-running conflict between the West and Russia. Allied Minsk.
The crisis has intensified this week, with hundreds more observers heading to the border claiming that they are similar to those in the early stages of the 2015 European refugee crisis.
Poland has responded by tightening its border to scare more and more people from Belarus, and Warsaw and its allies have accused the administration of President Alexander Lukashenko – and Russian leader Vladimir Putin – of encouraging people to make dangerous trips to Central Europe.
According to them, Minsk is taking revenge, trying to destabilize Europe by giving Lukashenko a sixth term in exchange for Western sanctions against Belarus after last year’s disputed elections, and after repression against dissent.
The growing conflict has brought together leaders from the EU, NATO and the United States.
“Difficult situation on the border”
In September, Poland imposed a state of emergency in the area bordering Belarus.
Journalists and support workers are barred from entering the area, which is 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) from Belarus and covers 200 sleeping villages and towns. Only those who prove that they are local residents can pass one of the established roadblocks.
On a foggy stretch of road near Poland’s Kuznica border crossing in Belarus, a group of Polish border guards with fluorescent vests stop to examine each car passing in either direction.
“The situation is difficult on the border,” says one guard. “You have to give up.”
He shook his head to emphasize the point: no one can go to the border area where thousands have gathered to seek asylum in the territory of the European Union.
At another checkpoint below the border, guards stopped another car and searched the suitcase before turning the driver over.

The temperature is frozen in the quiet border town of Sokolka.
Police cars and army trucks will roam the streets lined with Polish flags to celebrate Polish National Independence Day on November 11th.
15 minutes by car, a humanitarian crisis is unfolding on the fences of the Polish-Belarusian border, crowding, including families with young children, trapped in a geopolitical tug of war on the EU border.
This week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Russia, Belarus’ main ally, to intervene while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen raised the crisis at a meeting of US President Joe Biden in Washington, DC.
“We need to protect our democracies from this kind of cynical geopolitical power,” he told White House reporters.
European Council President Charles Michel on Wednesday suggested for the first time that the EU could legally fund a border fence, breaking a long tradition of EU officials refusing to provide any funding for border walls.
Meanwhile, as political tensions are boiling with no sign of a solution, refugees have a dark chance of another cold night. risking hunger and hypothermia.

Crystal van Leuwen, head of medical emergencies at the Doctors Without Borders (MSF or Doctors Without Borders or MSF) program, told Al Jazeera that the group was unable to enter. Despite repeated requests for limited area in Poland.
Some people cared for by the MSF have denounced extreme violence at the hands of EU border guards, van Leuwen said.
“People have described, in his words, hitting the butt of a gun and getting a kick in the ribs,” he said.
“One person described being electrocuted in the neck with physical injuries similar to what a Taser would leave. We also treated people with severe dehydration and hypothermia and those with serious mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as people who have attempted suicide. as a result of not knowing how to deal with the situation they found themselves in. ‘
At the time of publication, EU officials had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on these claims.
Van Leuwen said the current narrative about the so-called armaments of people on the move moved away from the serious medical problems on the ground.
“These are people, these are people and applying for asylum is not a crime. They have the right to a fair trial and to be treated with dignity and respect. ”
Van Leuwen also noted against reports suggesting that men on the border were mostly young and single, their groups met people of all ages, including families, pregnant women and children.
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