Poland rejects 12 asylum claims at Belarus border in first week since tough new law

Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland has refused to accept asylum claims from 12 people who have crossed the border from Belarus in the first week since it implemented a tough new law suspending asylum rights.

Human rights groups, including the UN’s refugee agency, have criticised the measures as a violation of Poland’s obligation under international law to accept asylum claims. But the government argues that they are a necessary response to the “weaponisation” of migration by Belarus and Russia.

In a statement to Notes from Poland on Thursday afternoon, border guard spokesman Andrzej Juźwiak said that officers have refused to accept asylum claims from 12 people since the measures came into force one week ago.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, the Rzeczpospolita daily, also citing border guard data, reported that all five cases it had information about concerned citizens of African countries: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Guinea. The nationalities of the other seven individuals remain unconfirmed.

All of those refused the right to claim asylum were subsequently returned to Belarus, notes Rzeczpospolita.

Since 2021, Belarus has been encouraging and assisting migrants and asylum seekers – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – to cross into Poland and other EU countries, in what European authorities have described as part of a “hybrid war” intended to destabilise the bloc.

In response to receiving a record number of asylum claims in 2024 – over 15,000 in total, 72% more than in 2023 – Poland’s government moved to introduce new legislation allowing the border guard to refuse asylum requests.

Those measures were signed into law by President Andrzej Duda last week, after which the interior ministry immediately introduced a 60-day suspension of asylum rights on the border with Belarus.

The new rules, however, include exceptions for vulnerable groups such as minors, pregnant women, people who require special healthcare and those deemed at “real risk of harm” if returned over the border.

Dariusz Sienicki, a border guard spokesman, told Rzeczpospolita that, since the new measures were introduced, two pregnant women who crossed the border were allowed to submit asylum claims. According to the Polish Press Agency (PAP), the women are from Cameroon.

A variety of human rights groups, including the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Poland’s own commissioner for human rights, have criticised the new law as a violation of Polish, European and international law, which requires countries to accept asylum claims.

Poland argues, however, that existing asylum rules were not designed to accommodate the deliberate instrumentalisation of migration by hostile states. It says that many of those helped across the border by Belarus are not genuine refugees.

TVN notes that, with the weather now improving, the number of attempted crossings from Belarus is increasing. Last month, over 2,800 such attempts were recorded by the border guard, an average of 90 a day.

Today, the agency told TVN that it had recorded 180 attempts in the last 24 hours alone. Over the last weekend, officers in the Podlasie province – which covers most of Poland’s border with Belarus – registered around 560 attempts, according to Rzeczpospolita.

“Always in March, since 2021, the number of migrants and attempted transgressions increases dramatically,” a border guard spokeswoman, Katarzyna Zdanowicz, told the newspaper. “[Some of] the migrants were carrying stones, which they threw at Polish officials.”

In the last six months, there have been more than 100 physical attacks on border guard officers, soldiers and police protecting the border with Belarus. Last year, a Polish soldier died after being stabbed while trying to stop a group from crossing the border.

Meanwhile, well over 100 migrants are believed to have died in the border region since the migration crisis began in 2021.

Last year, a Polish court ruled that border guards violated the law by sending injured migrants back over the border. This week, two photojournalists were awarded compensation by a court for their rough treatment at the hands of soldiers while they were reporting on the border crisis.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Podlaska Policja (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.