In the woods that line Poland’s border with Belarus, the body of a young Syrian man was found at the weekend. This was the ninth recorded death in the area since Alexander Lukashenko began to cynically exploit the desperation of migrants in his ongoing confrontation with the European Union.
There will surely be more. Close by, trapped in a narrow strip of no man’s land between opposing lines of Polish and Belarusian soldiers, thousands more men, women and children are enduring plunging sub-zero temperatures with no shelter. Mostly from Syria and northern Iraq, they are famished, frightened and inadequately dressed. Driven to the barbed wire border fences by Mr Lukashenko’s troops, they risk a beating if they try to turn back. Those who find a way to make a run for it into Poland are ruthlessly pursued by border guards and soldiers in what is in effect a militarised zone. When caught they are returned to the Belarusian side of the freezing forest. Humanitarian workers are unable to administer aid, having been excluded from emergency zones set up on the Polish side of the border. Journalists are forbidden from reporting there.
There is no doubt where the primary responsibility for this appallingly grim state of affairs lies. Mr Lukashenko is carrying out a threat first made in May to create a migrant crisis on European borders. The Belarusian state has waived tourist visa requirements, facilitated overnight stays in Minsk hotels and ferried migrants to the Polish border. This appears to be an ill-conceived attempt to pressure the EU to relax sanctions imposed following the fraudulent elections of 2020 that kept Mr Lukashenko in power. It isn’t working. On Monday, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, announced preliminary moves towards a fifth round of sanctions, aimed at those organising the despicable exercise. Airlines and travel agencies involved in transporting migrants to Minsk will also be targeted.
This is, of course, a reasonable response to Mr Lukashenko’s provocation. Europe must, as Mr Borrell put it, “stand up to the instrumentalisation of migrants for political purposes”. But this is exactly what is happening on the EU side of the divide, as well as in Minsk. Poland’s rightwing nationalist government – which has notoriously obstructed all attempts to establish a humane EU-wide asylum system – used the current crisis to pass a law allowing the pushback of migrants without consideration of asylum applications. Such refoulement is in contravention of the Geneva convention on human rights, but there has not been a murmur of dissent from Brussels. Warsaw has also committed to building a Trump-style border wall. The president of the European council, Charles Michel, visiting the Polish capital last week, declared that EU funding could legally be made available for such barriers. After an autumn of bitter argument over Poland’s illiberal disregard for EU laws and norms, Brussels and Warsaw are suddenly joined at the hip on the need to keep a few thousand frozen migrants out of the EU at any cost. Britain, keen to signal its own Fortress Europe credentials, has sent a small team of soldiers to show solidarity with the sentiment.
Since the migrant crisis of 2015, Europe has collectively hardened its heart against vulnerable outsiders. The stand-off in the forest has become a litmus test of just how callous it is prepared to be. Urgent humanitarian aid and assistance is required if greater loss of life is to be avoided. Mr Lukashenko will not provide it. The EU must.
