Poland recorded the third-highest number of migrant “pushbacks” among EU countries last year, a new collaborative report has found.
According to the document, Polish border guards carried out 13,600 pushbacks into neighboring Belarus as the migration crisis along the EU’s eastern frontier rumbles on.
The practice, considered illegal and widely condemned by human rights organizations, involves forcibly sending migrants back over the border they just crossed, without giving them the opportunity to be assessed for asylum.
The report, put together by several NGOs across Europe, places Poland third in the EU ranking, only behind Bulgaria, which enacted more than 52,000 pushbacks into Turkey, and Greece, which carried out 14,500 pushbacks.
The numbers represent pushbacks of individual people. If a person is pushed back more than one, each incident is recorded separately.
In total, EU countries recorded over 120,000 cases.
“The number of pushbacks at Europe’s external borders has risen sharply in recent years, to the extent that they have become a systematic practice within EU migration policy,” the report said.
The practice, considered illegal and widely condemned by human rights organizations, involves forcibly sending migrants back over the border they just crossed, without giving them the opportunity to be assessed for asylum.
The report, put together by several NGOs across Europe, places Poland third in the EU ranking, only behind Bulgaria, which enacted more than 52,000 pushbacks into Turkey, and Greece, which carried out 14,500 pushbacks.
The numbers represent pushbacks of individual people. If a person is pushed back more than one, each incident is recorded separately.
In total, EU countries recorded over 120,000 cases.
“The number of pushbacks at Europe’s external borders has risen sharply in recent years, to the extent that they have become a systematic practice within EU migration policy,” the report said.
‘Hybrid war’ at Poland’s eastern border
Poland has been facing a border and immigration crisis for several years as a result of the so-called “hybrid war” with Belarus and Russia.
Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has been accused by European leaders of weaponizing migration to cause political unrest in the EU.
Immigrants have been lured to Belarus from countries in Africa and the Middle East with a promise of passage into the EU’s Schengen area.
Dozens of migrants are believed to have died in the heavily guarded border zone during the crisis.
Including cases recorded in Latvia and Lithuania, the total number of pushbacks into Belarus in 2024 exceeded 20,000, according to the new report.
Poland last year passed a controversial law suspending the right to seek asylum for immigrants in an effort to tackle the crisis and regain control over its border.
Critics and humanitarian groups slammed the initiative for being in gross violation of EU and human rights. But top politicians in Brussels agreed with Poland’s centrist government’s tough stance on migration policies, giving the controversial measure the green light.
However, the situation at the Polish-Belarussian border remains fraught.
According to Poland’s Interior Ministry, some migrants have become increasingly aggressive and are equipped with dangerous tools, Euronews reported.
A Polish soldier died at the border last year after a migrant stabbed him with a knife attached to a wooden stick.
In December, a leading human rights organization published a damning report accusing Polish authorities of “unlawfully and sometimes violently” forcing migrants back into Belarus without assessing their need for protection.
Asylum seekers interviewed by Human Rights Watch for the report described “a consistent pattern of abuse by Polish border and law enforcement officials, including unlawful pushbacks, beatings with batons, use of pepper spray and destruction or confiscation of their phones.”
According to We Are Monitoring, an NGO that has collaborated on the report published earlier today, 14 people died in the Polish-Belarusian border zone in 2024.
As many as 87 people have died along the border since September 2021. The exact circumstances of the deaths are not documented.
Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has been accused by European leaders of weaponizing migration to cause political unrest in the EU.
Immigrants have been lured to Belarus from countries in Africa and the Middle East with a promise of passage into the EU’s Schengen area.
Dozens of migrants are believed to have died in the heavily guarded border zone during the crisis.
Including cases recorded in Latvia and Lithuania, the total number of pushbacks into Belarus in 2024 exceeded 20,000, according to the new report.
Poland last year passed a controversial law suspending the right to seek asylum for immigrants in an effort to tackle the crisis and regain control over its border.
Critics and humanitarian groups slammed the initiative for being in gross violation of EU and human rights. But top politicians in Brussels agreed with Poland’s centrist government’s tough stance on migration policies, giving the controversial measure the green light.
Dozens of deaths at the border
However, the situation at the Polish-Belarussian border remains fraught.
According to Poland’s Interior Ministry, some migrants have become increasingly aggressive and are equipped with dangerous tools, Euronews reported.
A Polish soldier died at the border last year after a migrant stabbed him with a knife attached to a wooden stick.
In December, a leading human rights organization published a damning report accusing Polish authorities of “unlawfully and sometimes violently” forcing migrants back into Belarus without assessing their need for protection.
Asylum seekers interviewed by Human Rights Watch for the report described “a consistent pattern of abuse by Polish border and law enforcement officials, including unlawful pushbacks, beatings with batons, use of pepper spray and destruction or confiscation of their phones.”
According to We Are Monitoring, an NGO that has collaborated on the report published earlier today, 14 people died in the Polish-Belarusian border zone in 2024.
As many as 87 people have died along the border since September 2021. The exact circumstances of the deaths are not documented.
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