FALCON POWERS – Since 2021, there has been an increase in migrant movement between Belarus and Poland, a crisis that the Polish authorities have called “orchestrated” by the Belarusian government. This has led Poland to increase its border patrols and build a metal wall with barbed wire. Despite these heightened security measures, smugglers are marketing this migration route as “the safest way to Europe.” What is the reality of the situation on this side of the European Union border? And how do the migrants themselves recount their experiences?
Recently, migrants who reached Poland after crossing the border from Belarus have described their journey – from first seeking information about this migration route, to spending weeks and months in the forests near the border areas. What is the true reality that migrants face on this side of the EU border? And what lies and illusions are the smugglers propagating to convince migrants to risk their lives crossing one of Europe’s oldest forests? “Of all the migration routes to Europe… this is the safest and most secure.”
The smugglers target potential migrants using messaging apps like Telegram and Signal, basing most of their arguments on claiming this is “the safest and most secure route to reach Europe,” justifying it by saying migrants don’t have to cross the sea to reach their destination.
The smugglers quote a financial amount for “crossing the forest,” ranging from 3,000 to 6,000 euros, without explaining the true costs of this journey. According to testimonies from migrants interviewed by the Migrant News team, the migration journey actually cost around 10,000 euros per person, as they were surprised by the travel costs from their home countries to Russia or Belarus, as well as the costs of accommodation, transportation, and the poor living conditions they endured.
Ahmed*, an Iraqi asylum seeker in Poland, says he left his country for Russia at the beginning of this year, then moved to Belarus before crossing the border into Poland.
“I only had $3,000, and I had to borrow $7,000 from my friends. I don’t know how I’m going to pay back all of this money. Every step of the journey costs a lot of money, and the smuggler was not clear about that. I was certainly aware that I would have to pay the costs of getting a tourist visa (valid for only four days) to Russia and the plane ticket, but the costs of staying in Russia and the car fare that transported me and a Syrian family to Belarus ($500 per person), the costs of staying in the Belarusian capital Minsk, and others… were all large costs that we didn’t know about.”
The tricks of the smugglers do not stop at the financial costs, but extend to hiding the truth about the route to the border. The 20-year-old youth explains, “In Moscow, we got into a car driven by a Russian man, who was supposed to take us to the Belarusian capital Minsk, but he stopped in the middle of the road and ordered us to get out of the car and started yelling at us.
That was in January, and the temperatures were freezing, we were walking on a frozen lake, and there was a 7-year-old Syrian girl with us who couldn’t walk because of the cold, so I carried her. In the end, the driver came back and took us to a nearby river, and there we crossed the river on an inflatable boat – no one had told us before that there was a river in Belarus that we had to cross! It took us 12 hours to reach the Belarusian capital, and we still hadn’t reached the Polish border.”
