Poland’s Catholic church has again appealed for migrants and refugees seeking to enter Poland from Belarus to be given humanitarian aid. It has also launched further fundraising efforts to provide help to those who cross the border.
Tens of thousands of people – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – have tried to cross into Poland this year, with the Polish authorities seeking to prevent their passage and returning many of those caught illegally entering. The situation escalated this week with the arrival of hundreds more migrants at one point on the border
“Regardless of the circumstances of the migrants’ arrival, they need our spiritual and material support,” wrote Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, head of the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP), the central organ of the Catholic church in Poland, in an appeal published yesterday.
“People in need must be shown our solidarity without detriment to Poland’s security,” added Gądecki. He called for “the faithful and all people of good will” to contribute to a nationwide collection of funds for migrants that will be carried out after holy masses on Sunday 21 November.
The money will be used by Caritas Polska, the church’s charity arm, “to fund aid activities in the border areas during the migration crisis and the process of long-term integration of refugees who decide to stay in Poland”.
Today, Caritas announced that it would be setting up “Tents of Hope” next to churches near the border. The stations, manned by volunteers, will provide aid to those in need.
The director of Caritas Polska, Marcin Iżycki, noted that, since the start of the border crisis this summer, his organisation has already “provided migrants with aid worth around one million zloty (€218,000)”. This has included food, clothes, hygiene products, nappies and toys for children, reports the Catholic Information Agency (KAI).
The Tents of Hope are also, however, intended to help reassure people living in the border areas, who often “struggle with fear and dilemmas about the situation”, added Cordian Szwarc of Caritas. “Our tents are a meeting space for mutual support…We want them to become places of good for everyone.”
Last week, a statement issued by leading Catholic organisations in Poland – including Caritas and the KEP – appealed for the authorities to allow access to the border zone so that medical and humanitarian aid can be provided there.
Currently, under a state of emergency introduced by the government, non-resident civilians, including the media, NGOs and medics, are banned from entering the area. Attempts by the Catholic Primate of Poland to secure access to the border for volunteer medics were rejected by the interior minister.
The Catholic groups that met last week also noted “a clear need for a social change in the perception of migrants and refugees”. They said that the church has an important role to play in ensuring that such people are “not seen as a threat to security, but…as fellow men who should be welcomed with love and respect”.
“The priority must be to prevent deaths in the increasingly dangerous conditions of cold and hunger” and “to end so-called pushbacks [across the border], especially of the weakest: women, children, the sick”, they added, quoted by Gość Niedzielny.
In August, at the start of the migration crisis, the KEP condemned the “un-Christian” fear of refugees and called for them to be shown “hospitality”. Last month, Gądecki again appealed to Poles “not to stigmatise arrivals” and to “welcome strangers”.
Main image credit: Agnieszka Sadowska / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
