Travelling between Poland and Belarus was relatively easy back in the 1990s, and the illicit cross-border trade was a crucial source of income for many locals. “I used to go back and forth almost daily… bringing back alcohol and cigarettes,” said one woman from the Muslim Tatar community in the Polish village of Bohoniki. Today, her community helps to bury those who have died attempting to cross the border without authorisation.
Polish border guards reported that there were more than 15,000 attempted border-crossings from Belarus last year, and more than 40,000 in 2021. At least 34 deaths have been documented along the Polish-Belarusian border since August 2021, though the real death toll is likely to be much higher and may never be known, with some bodies likely scavenged by animals before being discovered.
Among those attempting to make the crossing are Yemenis, fleeing what the UN has described as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.
