BRUSSELS — Polish border forces regularly force migrants back into Belarus, with reports of people being beaten, stripped of their clothes and left stranded in forests without food, shelter or medical care, according to a new report from Oxfam and Polish NGO Egala published Tuesday.
The report, titled “Brutal Barriers,” details widespread mistreatment at the Poland-Belarus border, including migrants being shot with rubber bullets, attacked by dogs and given water contaminated with pepper spray before being expelled.
Egala activists recounted the testimony of a 22-year-old Syrian national who had been stripped naked and left to freeze without shoes. Another group found a pregnant woman who was bleeding and in need of medical care but had been dragged back toward the border. The report said that some pregnant women suffered miscarriages after being denied assistance.
“Pushbacks at the Poland-Belarus border are generalized and systemic,” said Egala Advocacy Lead Aleksandra Gulińska. “We continuously come across people in the forest who have been forcibly returned to Belarus by Polish authorities.”
Despite such allegations, the European Commission in December allocated €52 million to bolster surveillance and infrastructure along Poland’s eastern border. In announcing the decision, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen noted that Poland and other border states are on the front lines of “hybrid threats” emanating from Belarus and Russia.
Belarus has played a central role in steering migrants toward the European Union, allegedly to destabilize the bloc, with state-controlled travel agencies offering them visas and transport. Once at the border, Belarusian security forces escort the migrants toward Polish territory while blocking their retreat.
When Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk replaced the country’s right-wing populist government in 2023, rights groups hoped his more EU-aligned stance would soften his country’s approach at the border. Instead Tusk’s government has tightened policies, reintroduced exclusion zones and approved a law allowing the temporary suspension of the right to seek asylum. Migration remains a key issue ahead of the country’s May presidential election.
While Brussels has avoided confronting Tusk’s government over the pushbacks, it is threatening legal action over Poland’s refusal to take in asylum-seekers under the EU Migration Pact, which requires member countries either to accept a quota of asylum-seekers or to contribute to a financial solidarity mechanism. Last week the Commission warned Warsaw it could face penalties for refusing to comply.
Until now, Warsaw has refused to budge.
“Poland will not implement any migration pact or any provision of such projects that would lead to Poland’s forced acceptance of migrants. This is definitive,” Tusk said in February, insisting that Poland is already under heavy migration pressure from Belarus and is hosting large numbers of Ukrainian refugees.
Rights groups warn that Poland’s actions — and the reluctance of Brussels to curtail them — are setting a dangerous precedent.
“The EU must stop bankrolling this pushback policy and shut down any future plans that gamble with people’s lives,” said Sarah Redd, Oxfam’s EU migration policy adviser. “This is not about politics — it’s about what is right.”
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