Sokolka If it weren’t so banal, the fog would be the perfect metaphor for the state of emergency in Poland’s extreme east. The fog lies on the streets, covers the stubble fields and the deserted villages and envelops the seemingly endless forests in the direction of Belarus. And figuratively it surrounds the three-kilometer-wide border zone on Polish territory, in which massive restrictions on freedom have been in effect since September.
Since the beginning of the week a group of several hundred migrants has tried to break through the border fortifications, Poland has significantly strengthened its security forces: 15,000 soldiers, border guards and police officers are now standing behind the barbed wire fences, patrolling the surrounding area and checking every car that tries to enter the zone . Only local residents are allowed through; the hordes of journalists who ended up in the sparsely populated area practically overnight are standing on the main road and filming the roadblock. Long columns of military and police vehicles with flashing lights rush past again and again.
In a single day we experience half a dozen controls by helmeted and masked men and women in bulletproof vests, all armed with submachine guns, on the side roads around the small town of Sokolka near the border. The officials who have been drawn together from all over Poland are just as terrifying as they are emphatically friendly and correct. But some seem a bit lost: someone in the village of Czuprynowo says he has not seen any refugees and only hears about the latest developments from the media.
In front of the Kundzin church, an elderly villager who only wants to give his first name – Lech – tells how the night before his garden was suddenly lit up by the headlights of a helicopter. “I’m a quiet guy, that’s why it’s not that bad,” he says laconically. He still finds it annoying. What annoys him most is that this week the school in Kuznica was closed with practically no warning and the children have to stay at home.
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Lech has also seen individual migrants in the last few weeks, with one man in particular impressing himself in his memory, who entered a restaurant with a bare chest and a single book in hand and quickly disappeared again. Neither he nor his acquaintances are among the numerous people in the region who actively help the migrants. Rather, they belong to the majority that watches what is happening relatively passively.
The young people in Sokolka, who as representatives of their school, are waiting to lay a wreath at the Pilsudski monument on the occasion of Independence Day on November 11th, also seem distant, although they say that they feel sorry for the refugees. She can still visit her friends in the border zone, says 18-year-old Patrycja Wroblewska, “but it is difficult to get reliable information”.
When she returned from a school trip from Warsaw this week, border police officers were billeted in her gym. She has seen refugees frequently since September, including during their driving lessons. “They just ran across the street like wild,” she says. But now these people are as if swallowed by the earth. In fact, this is also confirmed by aid organizations, the enormous security system has meant that only very few people cross the border on the Polish section.
Hardship and help
The refugees, most of whom come from the Kurdish state in northern Iraq, are still in the region. Around 2000 of them are stuck in no man’s land at the closed Kuznica border crossing. Others are in the woods, most of them on the Belarusian side of the border. There they are exposed to the arbitrariness of the officials, who, according to their reports, lead the refugees to the border fence and often enrich themselves financially from them.
Poland, Warsaw has long since made no secret of this, is driving people back en masse. Parliament passed a law in October requiring illegal immigrants to leave the country. As a high-ranking government adviser made clear at a late-evening conspiratorial meeting in front of the Orlen petrol station in Sokolka, the practice enjoys not only broad domestic but also European support. Lukashenko had completely misjudged himself politically when he escalated at the beginning of the week with the border storms he had orchestrated.
The government sees Poland not only as an eastern front-line state that protects Europe from blackmail by Belarus, but also as a fighter in a “hybrid war”. With its uncompromising line, Poland accepts that thousands vegetate in the forests under miserable conditions. A 14-year-old died on Wednesday – the eighth fatality since September.
The Polish government relies on deterrence.
(Photo: via REUTERS)
However, it is also clear that the cold and damp autumn would have long since led to a humanitarian catastrophe if the security authorities had not hidden considerable willingness to help behind the hard front. It is unofficially confirmed that both sides support the refugees with food and warm clothes. Government sources unofficially claim that children are exempt from the push-back policy. But refugees and local aid organizations tell the opposite.
Before the guard sends us away, we see toys in the window of one of the border guards’ barracks in Michalowo; In the village it is said that various rooms have now been cleared for mothers and their offspring. The authority rejects a request for an opinion. It only communicates the number of “border crossings prevented”.
Despite all the inconveniences, there is hardly any public dissatisfaction in the region. Rather, those who reject politics are fully engaged in providing assistance. It has made it clear that the government does not plan to withdraw its forces anytime soon, as well as that a further extension of the state of emergency is to be expected. The criticism of the lack of transparency within the zone impresses them little. The fog of half-knowledge gives her more freedom of movement.
The refugees are also apparently preparing for a long winter at the border: in the last few days they have started to build a tent city near Kuznica, including more solid structures made of wood. Living conditions will remain extremely precarious.
Collaboration: Katarzyna Piasecka
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