In this edition of ‘Witness’, Valérie Gauriat traveled to the border between Belarus and Poland, to Bialowieza, where the passage of migrants is crystallizing tensions.
For about two years, a wall built in the heart of the forest of Bialowieza delimit the border between Poland and Belarus. Bulwark against the influx of thousands of emigrants, whose forced passage to the European Union Minsk is accused of orchestrating. The surrounding region, once a mecca for Polish tourism, has also become the scene of numerous tragedies. An issue that polarizes Polish opinion more than ever.
Recently, in the Podlasie region of eastern Poland, Incidents between immigrants and security forces have multiplied. Last June, the death of a young soldier, stabbed at the border, sparked national outrage and accelerated the approval process of a new law that facilitates the use of firearms by the military and police.
‘Euronews’ journalist Valérie Gauriat accompanied a group of activists who collected distress calls from migrants who were trying to cross the border wall to search international protection in Poland. Some of them tried several times to cross the border without success before making it. They say that they were beaten and returned to Belarus and that they slept for days in the forest.
