Placed in these centers after having entered the territory illegally, often having crossed the border with Belarus, these refugees are asking for better living conditions where they are detained and more information on their complicated situation.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Warsaw, Martin Chabal
Since Thursday, almost all of the refugees in a guarded center on the border with Ukraine have stopped eating, and even drinking for some.
One of them, contacted by telephone, because no journalist is allowed in the centre, and who prefers to remain anonymous, explains his demands to us: “ We protest, he said, because we would like the law to be respected. We would like to know how long we will stay here. Three months ? Six months ? If I’m going to be deported, I’d like to know how it’s going to happen. We don’t know anything. »
Since then, center staff have tried to intimidate the strikers. “ We were in the courtyard, and the guards took one of my colleagues and wanted to force him to sign papers to be transferred to another center. Without knowing where », confides our interlocutor. The refugees at the center then showed their support for their colleague.
A group of hooded men with iron bars in their hands entered. They beat us and took our colleague away by force.
Zosia works with a legal aid association for refugees in Poland. For her, it is important to also extend the length of stay in these centers: “ The European Union says that we cannot stay in these camps for more than six months. And after these six months, people are very depressed and there are regular suicide attempts in these camps. »
In Poland, more than 1,500 illegal refugees are detained in these guarded centers. In conditions which even alerted the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights.
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