Poland claims bodies found in border river belong to migrants forced to cross by Belarus

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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 recovered two dead bodies from the Bug River that marks part of the border with Belarus. A deputy interior minister says they likely belong to migrants who Belarusian officers pushed into the water as part of efforts to encourage irregular crossings into the European Union.

On Thursday morning, police confirmed to the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that the bodies of two men were found in the river near the village of Stary Bubel, which sits alongside the border with Belarus.

The remains already showed “a significant degree of decomposition” and prosecutors are still seeking to confirm their identities and causes of death.

“It is possible that these are the bodies of migrants, because some time ago in that area, during an attempt by a larger group of people to illegally cross the state border, we received information about people who could have drowned,” said a border guard spokesman, Dariusz Sienicki.

He noted that, after those earlier reports, border guard officers and firefighters had spent two days searching for bodies using boats, divers and sonar, but without any success.

Speaking separately to state broadcaster TVP, a deputy interior minister, Maciej Duszczyk, confirmed that the bodies likely belong to migrants who were among a group of “a dozen or so” people seen last month being “pushed into the water” by the Belarusian authorities.

“Some people probably couldn’t swim,” said Duszczyk. “Border guards in Poland managed to save some of them. Of course, seeing drowning people, they helped them.”

Duszyk said that the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has helped bring so many migrants to Belarus, with the aim of then helping them cross into the EU, that he now has a “problem” because Poland has significantly strengthened its border defences.

As a result of “growing frustration…we expect that Lukashenko will want to carry out provocations, even using violence against migrants”, in order “to escalate the conflict”, said the deputy minister.

Since 2021, Poland has been facing a migration and security crisis on the border with Belarus, where tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers – mostly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – have tried to cross irregularly with the encouragement and assistance of the Belarusian authorities.

Poland and the EU have described the situation as part of a “hybrid war” being waged by Belarus and Russia, who are “weaponising” migrants in an effort to destabilise European countries.

In 2021, Poland also discovered the body of a Syrian man who had drowned in the Bug after reportedly being pushed in by Belarusian officers.

Last July, Grupa Granica, a Polish organisation that seeks to provide humanitarian support to migrants, estimated that at least 130 people had died around the border between Belarus and the EU since the beginning of the current crisis.

Both the previous and current Polish governments have introduced a series of measures at the border intended to discourage and prevent irregular crossings. That has included physical and electronic barriers being constructed along the frontier.

Last month, Poland also suspended the right to apply for asylum by people crossing the border from Belarus. Those caught crossing are – with the exception of certain vulnerable groups – returned back over the border into Belarus.

That measure has been criticised by human rights groups, including the UN’s refugee agency,  who say that it is a violation of both Polish and international law and argue that Belarus is not a safe country to return people to.

Last weekend, Poland’s government published footage from the border that it said showed a uniformed Belarusian officer among a group of migrants trying to cut a hole in the border fence and who then threw stones at Polish border guards.

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: KPRM/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

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.