Imagine this, you’re the long-time President of an Eastern European country, and you’ve just won a fraudulent election. Your citizens start to protest, you crackdown and the European Union (EU) imposes sanctions on your country. You then force an international flight to land so that you can detain a dissident activist due to which the EU responds with even tougher sanctions. Poland offers a humanitarian visa to an Olympic sprinter whom you tried to forcibly repatriate in the middle of the ongoing Olympics, leaving you red-faced.
What would you do next?
Well, if you are the Belarusian President, Alexander Lukashenko, you manufacture a humanitarian crisis on the European Union’s border.
The Journey
For months, Belarusian officials and state-affiliated travel agencies worked to bring persons from multiple countries to Minsk under the pretext of helping them travel to the EU where they could apply for asylum [1]. Air traffic data show Belarusian national carrier, Belavia, doubling flights from cities such as Baghdad, Beirut, and Dubai.
The refugees, who were mostly from Iraq, were then escorted to Latvian, Lithuanian, and Polish borders — all members of the EU. There, they were met with riot police and border guards preventing them from crossing and even resorting to pushing them back into Belarus, violating the International and European laws.
Lithuania and Poland were accused of not respecting non-refoulement, one of the key concepts of internal law, where refugees cannot be sent back to territories where they might be exposed to further violence. The European Convention on Human Rights requires migrants to be given access to the asylum process regardless of how they enter. Yet, this was consistently disregarded by the aforementioned countries, and the EU as a whole seemed to be disinterested in enforcing these conventions in this case.
When these tired refugees tried to return, they were met by the Belarusian guards and police, who forced them right back. There are even reports of violence on the part of the Belarusian authorities. Thus, migrants were now stuck on the border with barbed wire in front of them and the Belarusian military blocking the way back.
Out in the Cold
All the EU members bordering Belarus declared states of emergency. Poland, in particular, received a lot of attention for its actions. The ruling Law and Justice party had come to power on an anti-immigrant stance and had no intention of letting these refugees in, even if their destination was western Europe and not Poland itself. Those who had crossed found themselves hiding in the forests near the border with little to deal with the intense cold. Poland set up a zone near the border that prohibited the entry of journalists and aid workers and even went so far as to criminalize helping migrants on the border.
Migrants had little food or water, and no shelter. Their only protection against the elements was a few pieces of clothing and blankets handed out by volunteers. Refugees describe being stuck in a vicious cycle of being beaten and forced over the border and pushed back after being found in Poland. Many of them claim that they’ve crossed into Poland or other bordering states more than a handful of times. Those trying to cross at official border crossings were met with tear gas and water cannons.
If they crossed the border, they would have to hide in the forests and hope activists found them before the police or border guards. They were exposed to temperatures close to that of the freezing temperature and rain, often for days.
A large proportion of the refugees suffered from hypothermia and frostbite as they spent most nights sleeping on the cold damp ground in wet clothes; yet, they weren’t receiving medical aid as aid workers were restricted from reaching them and the Polish authorities were rarely sympathetic. Seeking medical help often involved a lot of risks as the Polish police would only take the sick to the hospital while sending others back to the border, and in the process, separating families. Even those treated in hospitals were eventually sent back.
This situation left migrants, especially children, exhausted and traumatized. Unable to get adequate aid, many of them succumbed to the harsh winter conditions. The Missing Migrants Project estimates that 21 people have died or are missing, including 3 children [2].
Reduced to Geopolitical Pawns
This crisis exposed a loophole in the foreign policy of the European Union. Following the 2015 migrant crisis, the bloc outsourced the handling of refugees wanting to enter Europe to countries bordering it, essentially paying countries such as Turkey to prevent migrants from coming to Europe. This way they could avoid the bad press that often comes with handling such humanitarian crises.
Lukashenko exploited this and hoped to get concessions from the Union. Backed by his ally Russia, he continued to send refugees to the border until international outrage and diplomatic pressure forced him to backtrack and reverse his policies.
The analysis of the geopolitics aspects of this crisis risks relegating migrants and their plight to the background. While Polish officials have used the term “hybrid warfare” to describe Belarusian policy, the term seems inadequate for describing the cruelty of trafficking and the utilization of refugees for geopolitical ends, or the abuses of human rights by both sides.
The people on the border were just ordinary people who were promised a better life in western Europe; but, were instead left on the border between two countries they wanted little to do with. And while most never made it to their destination, a few never made it back either.
Article by: Shashaank Ramesh Kumar, Co-editor, For The Record, PES MUN Society, RR Campus
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