The route to Europe via Belarus may be one of the safest, but its all relative. Since the beginning of this year, as many as ten bodies of dead migrants have been found in the forests near the border on the Polish side, bringing the total known to have died since the crisis began in 2021 to 40.
There are many more bodies being found in this period than before, confirmed Palecka, adding that the Border Guard reported finding only four dead bodies throughout the whole of 2022.
But we, the activists, were always suspicious of the fact that only four bodies were found throughout the whole of last year. On the contrary, this is a rather unsettling fact; it only shows that the state of emergency imposed at the border for most of last year, which limited freedom of movement close to the border, meant less searches could be conducted, she said. It is very possible there are more dead bodies in the forest.
This concern is heightened by fact that the greatest burden of searching for missing migrants is being borne by activist groups such as the Volunteer Humanitarian Ambulance in Podlaskie (Podlaskie Ochotnicze Pogotowie Humanitarne) and Grupa Granica, which receive information about missing people from their families or friends, and go in search of them in the forests.
As Palecka explained, Grupa Granica has been able to track down about a third of the 300 people reported missing to them an impressive feat for a group made up largely of volunteers and NGO workers.
The Polish authorities themselves do not search for people missing in the forests, Palecka said, except when activists directly report an emergency to them, i.e. when they know of a migrant potentially stuck in a dangerous location, like a swamp. In such cases, drones are sent to spot the exact location and more specialised gear is used to pull them out.
Sometimes, the activists only find human remains. And even when a body is found, it is mostly the activists who try to identify the person and assist in the funeral arrangements.
Prosecutors are responsible for starting an investigation once a dead body is found in the forest, Palecka said. People should not be dying in the forest. So, if a body is found there, it means something bad has happened.
But in many cases these investigations are not pursued, the sociologist complained, pointing to a significant discrepancy between the number of deaths on the border officially acknowledged by the Border Guard and the number of dead bodies counted by activists and independent Polish media.
Efforts to identify the victims and give them proper burials are made more difficult by the fact that members of their families, who should normally come to identify the bodies, often cannot themselves get visas.
In some cases, the activists and families back home manage to raise the funds to send the bodies back home, but other times they dont and the victims are buried in Polish cemeteries, with the funeral broadcast via social media, which is tragic, she said.
As the advent of spring brings signs that the attempts by migrants to cross are intensifying, can the activists continue shouldering the burden of dealing with the human cost of keeping this border closed?
While the Polish authorities have gotten professionalised in conducting illegal mass pushbacks, we have also gotten more professionalised in providing humanitarian aid, Palecka claimed. We are more efficient, we are able to spot faster the most vulnerable people, and we have procedures in place to help them.
But there are also feelings of helplessness associated with doing this. When public opinion no longer seems interested in this border, even when four dead bodies are found in a single week, then there is a sense of loneliness, she said.
This interview is part of a series of articles on migration co-authored by BIRN and Gazeta Wyborcza. This article was published as part of the project re:framing Migrants in European Media supported by the European Commission and coordinated by the European Culture Foundation.
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Polish-Belarus Border: From Migration Crisis to 'Routinization' of ... - Balkan Insight