Fleeing, injured, and forgotten in Poland’s border forest

Aleksandra Chrzanowska stops for a moment, checks her location on her cell phone, then marches straight into the forest, following no signpost or path. She walks confidently, despite the marshy, uneven ground.

The Bialowieza National Park is Europe’s last remaining primeval forest. Since 2021, Chrzanowska, a member of the Warsaw-based human rights organization Association for Legal Intervention, has spent almost every day in the forest on the Polish-Belarusian border. That was when Belarus started to encourage people from third countries to cross into Poland, as a way of exerting pressure on the EU. Poland responded by erecting a border fence and sending people back to Belarus. Since then, the situation at the border has deteriorated into a full-blown humanitarian crisis.

Chrzanowska points to a map on her phone. It is dotted with colored markers. Each represents an “intervention,” as the activists from the network Grupa Granica call their humanitarian activities in the forest along the border with Belarus. Usually, this means bringing hot soup, water, clothes, shoes, and power banks for the refugees. In many instances, they also provide medical assistance, and they get support from a doctor if the case is serious.

Five-meter steel fence doesn’t prevent migration

Since the five-meter-high border fence was erected along the border with Belarus, there has been a sharp increase in injuries like broken bones, and deep cuts from barbed wire. “The fence doesn’t stop people,” Chrzanowska says. “They have no choice. Their lives are in danger in their homelands.” Last year, Grupa Granica received around 5,600 emergency calls. They were able to intervene in response to about 1,400, helping some 3,400 people. The stranded migrants came from countries like Syria, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

The same year, the Polish border police recorded around 30,000 attempts to cross the border illegally. That number continues to increase: Frontex reported that in 2024 the number of people taking the so-called eastern migration route through Belarus went up by around 200%.

Refugees contact the emergency number and beg for help

Today, Aleksandra Chrzanowska is on her way to a designated spot to collect items left behind after an earlier intervention. Grupa Granica can sometimes reuse them, but the important thing is that they don’t want any litter left in this unique nature reserve. Chrzanowska dons disposable gloves, picks up a thermos, a torn jacket, and a child’s shoe, and puts them in a rubbish bag.

Her phone rings. The base camp is calling. Reception is poor: Chrzanowska curses, but she’s got the gist. Two Afghan men have just sent a text to the international emergency number, asking for help. “We have to hurry,” she says. Suddenly she’s like a different person. She grabs the rubbish bag, and as we stride toward the base camp, she listens to voice messages giving details of the upcoming intervention.

Hidden deep in the forest

One of the men has deep cuts, the messages say. The Afghan refugees have also asked for dry clothes and shoes, as they’re soaked to the skin. They’ve sent a photo of the wound, which will be forwarded to a doctor for consultation. Meanwhile, at the base camp, other volunteers are packing the things the men need into big rucksacks.

A short time later, Chrzanowska and another activist set off along a path, before plunging off into the depths of the forest, for reasons of security. They meet up with the refugees at the marked location they sent them earlier. Chrzanowska reports that the men were well hidden; it took them a while to find them.

The men, in their mid-20s, speak no English. The activists use translation apps on their phones, typing in questions that the app translates into Pashtu. How long have they been in the forest? The men type in: a few weeks, three days on the Polish side. It’s their third attempt; they’ve been pushed back twice before. This means that the Polish border guards have already caught them twice, and sent them back to Belarus, even though the men are seeking asylum. On March 27 this year, Poland suspended the right to apply for asylum at the Belarusian border.

Seriously injured jumping from the fence

The men haven’t eaten or drunk anything for several days. They gratefully accept the chickpea soup, sweet tea, and drinking water the activists have brought them. While they fortify themselves, Chrzanowska exchanges text messages with the doctor. The wound on the man’s foot is deeper than it looked on the photo. The doctor sends Chrzanowska instructions for cleaning and treating the cut.

The man types into the phone that he got the injury jumping from the border fence. The migrants were accompanied to the border by armed Belarusian soldiers, who were very aggressive, and hit them, he writes. The soldiers propped a ladder against the five-meter-high steel barrier, and forced the Afghans to jump down on the other side. “Normally, we would call an ambulance, to get the wound properly treated,” says Chrzanowska. But since the suspension of asylum procedures, this is too risky, because “then border guards come as well. And that means there’s a very high risk that the refugees will be sent back to Belarus again, regardless of the injury.”

Local aid organizations are on their own

The intervention lasts about half an hour. Chrzanowska tries to clean the wound as best she can. When she gets back from the intervention, she reports that the man was lying on the forest floor, very weak and in a lot of pain. “I was worried that he might not even be able to walk anymore,” she says. Once he had eaten and drunk something, though, he soon stabilized.

For Aleksandra Chrzanowska, this moment is always very moving. “At first, the refugees are very frightened. Once they’re in dry clothes, and have had some hot tea or soup, you see them become human again.” Some then even insist on sharing the food with her.

The Grupa Granica network consists of several local NGOs and aid initiatives, and is supported by hundreds of volunteers, along with a small number of full-time helpers. Other than Doctors Without Borders, no international NGOs are active at the border between Poland and Belarus — unlike at other external EU borders.

The Polish government disapproves of the work the activists are doing, and criminalizes the provision of support to migrants. Right now, five activists are on trial in the eastern Polish town of Hajnowka for helping an Iraqi Kurdish family with seven children who were hiding in the forest. They sare accused of “facilitating the stay” of illegal immigrants for “personal benefit.”

Aleksandra Chrzanowska is not intimidated. “Helping people is legal,” she says curtly. Just a few hours later, they receive another emergency call. A group of four Afghans is asking for help. One reports that he has broken his leg jumping from the border fence. This time, a doctor will go with them.

This reportage was supported by a research grant from the Foundation for German–Polish Cooperation.

The article has been translated from German.