JUROWLANY / HAJNÓWKA What would you do if people died of cold or dehydration in your home forest without help?
The question is asked by all the ordinary people interviewed for this story who help migrants hiding in the Polish forests on the border with Belarus.
October nights get cold quickly. There will probably be freezing temperatures ahead this winter as well. People from Syria, Iraq, Cameroon, Cuba or the Belgian Congo have no equipment to survive the cold.
We met four helpers on different sides of the border with Belarus at the beginning of the week. The Polish border guard did not respond to ‘s request for an interview.
In a couple of years, the dense mixed forests of eastern Poland have become a transit route for migrants to Western Europe, mainly To Germany. Migrants are pawns of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko in the war against the West.
Lukashenka’s forces force the refugees to cross the border to the Polish side. If the Polish border guards do not catch the arrivals and take them to the asylum center or return them back over the border fence, the arrivals are left to their own devices.
A trip to Germany with smugglers costs 2,000–5,000 euros, but not everyone has money.
The same can happen in Finland, because the same laws prevail in Russia as in Belarus, Auttajat warns. If the neighbor decides to start playing a geopolitical game with people, then you should be prepared.
– The situation in Finland compared to Poland is different in that it is much more difficult for you to smuggle people forward to Central Europe due to the geography, part-time professor of philosophy and author Mirosław Miniszewsk says.
When bodies started to be found in the forest, local Poles living near the border like Miniszewsk took action. They started hosting people and eventually collecting donations as well. Some have quit their day jobs in order to save lives.
– These were before my berry and mushroom forests. The forest was a place of relaxation and enjoyment. Now it’s a graveyard for me. I’m afraid I’ll run into a body, says Miniszewsk.
“These forests are not just any forests”
Miniszewsk openly says that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of following the fates of newcomers. Still, he plans to continue helping.
He has accommodated hundreds of people in his home and organized thousands of supplies with Facebook collections.
– These forests are not just any forests. The nature is wild, difficult to navigate and very dangerous, especially in winter, when it can be as low as -35 degrees below zero. For people from the south, it is fatal.
The hardest thing for Miniszewski to understand is that the authorities in his own country knowingly make life difficult for the helpers.
– On Lambedusa or the English Channel, people are allowed to help their fellow humans. Here we are criminals, says Miniszewsk.
The state media is silent
In Europe, not much is known about the treatment of people on Poland’s eastern border, partly because the Polish media has remained silent on the matter.
Some of the people and the authorities consider helping migrants unpatriotic. They are fed a picture of asylum seekers as henchmen of Belarus’ Lukashenka.
When the director Agnieszka Hollandin a film about the miserable situation at the border was released in the summer, it caused a lot of controversy and received strong criticism from Polish government officials. Official Poland accused Holland of giving a bad image of Polish border guards abroad. Now Holland has to move accompanied by security guards.
Immigrants have to hide because they are afraid of the authorities.
They may have been abused or raped at the border with Belarus. In Poland, the helpers may have been injured and taken to the hospital. If Polish border guards get a tip-off about migrants, they often return the arrivals back to Belarus in primitive conditions.
After that, they can be pushed back into the Polish forests again. At that point, people can already be in very bad shape.
Volunteer and journalist Piotr Czaban tells about an Iraqi From Ahmed, which had been promoted from one country to another. Ahmed already begged the Belarusians to let him return to his homeland, but they pushed him back to Poland.
Ahmed died of hypothermia in the Polish forest because his comrades did not dare to contact the Polish authorities. Czban handled the contact with Ahmed’s relatives in Iraq after the death.
The government is proud of its border fence
Poland’s nationalist right-wing government is fighting for a further victory in next Sunday’s parliamentary elections. The opposition has tried to publicize the border situation, but in Poland the media is controlled by the state.
The authorities have also been caught with visas financing. Polish embassies and consulates sold visas to the Schengen area for 5,000 euros, bypassing the official routes. The EU is still waiting for an explanation from Poland.
The government only talks about a few hundred visas sold, the opposition clearly about wider and more systematic corruption.
– The ministers pose next to the fence and say that we have the finest fence in Europe. How then is it possible that thousands of people get over and under and through it, asks Piotr Czban.
According to the assistants, an estimated 150 migrants crossed the border the night before Thursday alone. They had reliable location information from two groups, one with 52 people and the other with five people.
The youngest refugee helper is only a 16-year-old high school student Mateusz Rybak. For a couple of years now, he has used all his free time to help “forest people”.
At home, Rybak packs medicine, warm clothes, food and drink into his backpack and transports them to the migrants. Sometimes he has received the supplies as donations, sometimes his mother pays for the supplies.
– The first time, my parents and I brought them tea in a thermos bottle. I was curious to see if they really are terrorists and criminals as claimed. Well, not really, but quite ordinary people, Rybak says.
Although there are dangers in taking humanitarian aid into the forest, Rybak has never been afraid.
When there were many Spanish speakers among the refugees, he learned a little Spanish. Now it is needed again, because there have been several Cubans in the forest. As a result of recent events in the Middle East, Rybak believes that many Palestinians will be next.
Next week, Rybak’s classmates will go on a class trip to Sweden for fall vacation, but he wants to stay and help immigrants.
– I can travel at any time later, but someone’s whole life may depend on my help here, he says.
In the border town of Hajnówka, not everyone likes Rybak’s activities. Last year, classmates threatened to cut off his leg so that he can no longer go into the forest.
– I don’t care, I’m used to it, and so is my whole family.
Rybak’s mother volunteers to help at the local refugee center, and his father helps his son pack aid supplies into his backpack.
The forest has always been important to Rybak.
– Of course we help people, because who would want people to die in their own forest.
Dozens dead, hundreds missing
At least dozens, but maybe even hundreds of people have died in the forests of Eastern Poland. According to the helpers, around 300 people are missing. has seen pictures of the bodies found in the forest and the migrants’ injuries, and has visited the graves of the dead.
– If there were no helpers for us, we would certainly be talking about several hundreds of dead instead of tens, known in Poland as the “man of the forest” Mariusz Kurnyta says.
Kurnyta has been carrying medicines, warm clothes, food and drink to the migrants since the summer of 2021. Now she works for an organization, so she also gets a little salary for her work.
– First aid skills and medication had to be studied, but otherwise you don’t need any special abilities. You just have to be human and help.
– When I’m in the forest, I’m only interested in the person lying on the ground. It doesn’t matter where he comes from, says Kurnyta.