ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Migrants stranded at the Poland-Belarus borders are in “enormous misery,” a member of a Polish migration foundation told Rudaw on Wednesday as thousands of Iraqis and Kurds searching for a better life abroad are caught up in a dispute between European nations and Belarus. “The situation is really difficult and lots of people are there now in quite big misery, stuck between [the] Belarus and Polish border,” project coordinator at the Polish Migration Forum Karolina Czerwinska told Rudaw’s Alla Shali. There are a couple of thousand people on the Belarus side wanting to cross the border to stay in temporary camps, she added. Thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, have tried to gain entry to EU nations from Belarus in recent months. The EU has accused Minsk of pushing migrants to their borders in protest of sanctions imposed in response to a crackdown on dissent. Poland declared a state of emergency on their border in late September, it has found evidence of links to extremism on the phones of some migrants. Some migrants who have crossed the Belarus-Poland border are currently in the “emergency zone” claimed by the Polish, live in alien, unknown conditions as “journalists and humanitarian organizations cannot enter” that area, Czerwinska said. Several asylum seekers have reportedly left the emergency zone and were able to migrate to the West. “We met people that haven’t eaten for four-five days,” Czerwinska said noting that they are trapped in “enormous misery.” Poland has built a fence and is working on another one to stop illegal migration almost omitting the chances of crossing its borders without being noticed. “There is absolutely no chance that you will cross the border, you will get trapped, you will be deprived of documents and money and sent to the forest during the wintertime,” Poland’s deputy foreign minister Marcin Przydacz said earlier this month. Migrants often take risky and illegal routes and journeys in hopes of finding a better life abroad. Thirty-two Yazidis were on the “brink of death” on the Poland-Belarus border last month. The European Court of Human Rights on August 25 ruled Poland and Latvia must provide the migrants with food, water, clothing, medical care, and temporary shelter if possible, but does not require them to let the migrants cross into their territory. A digital investigation by Amnesty International has found that Poland violated refugees’ rights by unlawfully pushing them across the border to Belarus. Around 37,000 people from the Kurdistan Region have left the country in the first ten months of 2021, head of Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugee and Displaced Affairs Ari Jalal told Rudaw on Tuesday. Ten people have died en route to Europe and 12 migrants remain missing.
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