Belarus: Into the Wall
Radio Télévision Suisse | 13min
Postproduction script

VO: The border between Belarus and Poland, the scene of a humanitarian crisis that is turning into a confrontation. More than 3,000 people have been trapped there for days in the cold, without food or water.

Men, women and children, most of them fleeing Iraqi or Syrian Kurdistan. On the one hand, the migrants attack the barbed wire with these fans distributed by Belarus, on the other hand the Polish forces try to push them back with tear gas and water cannons. A 3km wide exclusion zone has been created along the Polish border. NGOs and journalists are forbidden to enter. More than 20,000 soldiers and police officers are stationed in the area, where the same message is heard over and over again in all languages

Microphone: After crossing the border, you will be sent back to the country you came from.

1’15 VO: Istanbul. Point of departure for Belarus. Here, as in some twenty other cities, a vast system has been set up to attract candidates for exile to Minsk.... A system initiated by President Lukashenko's regime, which is looking for a way to put pressure on the European Union. To get a ticket to Europe, you have to go to the Aksaray district, the migrant district where everything is sold and negotiated. To understand the system, I pretend to be an Afghan going to Germany, I go to one of the tour operators sponsored by the Belarusian regime. This company offers visas and plane tickets to Minsk while assuring that the rest of the journey to Europe is just a formality.  I am welcomed by a Syrian who explains me how it will happen.

2’10 Tour operator: We prepare the file and take it to the Belarusian consulate.

Journalist: Here in Istanbul?

Tour operator: Yes, here. We get your invitation letter and hotel reservation. The price is $2500. Going to Belarus is very easy, it's like an adventure.

2’34 VO: At Istanbul airport, at the gate for Minsk, I meet 3 young Iraqi Kurds. Nechirwan and his friends have been on the road for 3 months. They are trying to reach Denmark where their families live.

Journalist: Are you going to Minsk tonight?

Nechirwan: Yes Minsk, at the border.

Journalist: What do you think about it? Are you confident?

Nechirwan: I don't think so.

Journalist: Is it dangerous?

Nechirwan: Yes, it is very difficult to cross the border

3’10 VO: They left from Suleymaniah in Iraq and paid $4,000 each to get to Belarus. As journalists are generally not welcome there, I give my number to Nechirwan who promises to send me videos of his journey. That's where they want to come. Poland, the first border of the European Union, the Eldorado they are trying to reach. Once there, there is no border before Berlin or Copenhagen. Belarus is just on the other side of this forest. Only the 3 km of the forbidden zone separates them.

Since the influx of migrants, Poland has deployed big means. Here, military camps are springing up all around the border. Thousands of soldiers are on patrol day and night looking for those who have managed to cross to the European side. The police are also on the alert, systematically searching all cars in the area for migrants.

4’13 Policeman: Stay 10m away from me!

4’17 VO: In an undisclosed location, activists from Switzerland prepare warm clothes and food. As no official organisation is allowed to intervene in the area, it is only volunteers like them who go (clandestinely) to help those who pass through Poland. Silvana, from Caravan without Borders, left Geneva with 7 tonnes of relief supplies.

4’45 Silvana Mastromatteo: This is the sleeping bag that we need. It goes down to temperatures of -5, -11, -31. It allows someone to survive. There’s some discussion, we’ll wait for them to come back. But when they say that the Red Cross or DWB can come into the zone, what is it they’ll find? Dead bodies, because of the harsh temperatures.

5’20 VO: Nechirwan and his friends have finally arrived in Minsk and are sending me their first video.... They are going to join a group that will leave for the border. He explains to me that the idea is to move in numbers, in order to avoid arrests or deportations.

5’35 Nechirwan: We are in Minsk, in the Belarusian capital. We buy Sim cards to communicate with our friends. We bought food and water, and now my friends are sleeping. We were told that we had to leave tomorrow morning.

6’15 VO: The next day, Nechirwan and his friends take a taxi to the border. There they will join the several thousand migrants stuck in front of the barbed wire. On the spot, hundreds of people move in groups, looking for an opening or a passage. Sometimes they are guided by the Belarusian forces themselves who do not hesitate to ask them for money. On the Polish side, in the town of Byalistock, a refugee centre accommodates 40 people. Here people rest after being treated or while waiting for an answer to an asylum application. Those who stay here have avoided deportation or return to Belarus. More than 200 of them have been here since the beginning of the crisis.

Yusef Atallah is from Damascus. He is 37 years old. He left Syria to help his two daughters and his wife back home. It took 3 attempts and a broken nose for Yusef to get to the European side.

7’19 Yusef: The Belarusian guards stopped us and searched us. They kicked me in the face. They broke my nose and a bone there.

VO: For a $200 bribe each, the Belarusian police then take their group to another crossing point.

Yusef: The Belarusian police came back to put us in trucks to take us to another place on the border. And there they lifted the barbed wire and let us cross to the other side. But I told my friend that I couldn't walk anymore. I thought that if the Polish police saw me, maybe they could help me.

8’03 VO: The Polish police arrested him and took him to hospital. After 7 days he was transferred to this centre. Yussef then applies for asylum and his status prevents his deportation. At the end of the corridor, in another room, Ali managed to pass after the eighth attempt. He is Afghan and fled when the Taliban took his country. He testifies with his face hidden for fear of reprisals against his family in Afghanistan.

8’29 Ali: My wounds have healed. The Belarusian border guards force us to cut the barbed wire. My wife is pregnant, she was pushed by a Polish border guard. And this caused her to bleed. She was taken to hospital, but my son and I were sent back to Belarus. We were separated.

8’57 VO: Ali finally managed to convince a Polish border guard to help him find his wife.  Today the family is reunited in this centre.

Back to Minsk, after a first failed attempt, the 3 Kurdish friends have no hotel and find themselves on the street in minus 10 degrees?

9’22 Nechirwan: We sleep like this.

9’28 VO: Dislodged by the police in the middle of the night, they find a corner of the shopping mall to rest before heading back to the border.

9’41 Nechirwan: We are going towards the border. We are so close to the group that is stuck there. We are going to join them. There are about 300 people over there.

VO: In front of Nechirwan, a man on a crutch is also making his way. In the same forest, on the Polish side, Maria Ancipiuk walks through the woods.  She is the head of the Michalowo town council. For her the situation is untenable.

10’24 Maria Ancipiuk: Here we are in the forest where I come with the firemen. This is the place where we are most often involved with people who need help. It's the local people who warn us.

10’39 VO: Not far away, Maria wants to show me the beginning of the zone closed to NGOs and the media.

10’46 Maria: I, as president of the city council, have the right to go in with the fire brigade and provide first aid to those who need it.

11’06 VO: Every evening Maria turns on a green light in her house. A sign for migrants that they are welcome to warm up and rest in her house.

11’18 Maria: These people in need can come here, drink hot tea, get warm, charge phones, or take basic medicines. We can also bring them to our help centre, and there they will be taken care of according to their needs. Helping is legal. It is violence that is a crime. I think if I help someone in need, I won't be punished for it. I might go to jail or pay a fine. But I'm not going to be shot at like during the war. You have to remember that at that time our grandfathers helped the Jews and they risked deportation or even death for that.

12’16 VO: On the Belarusian side, Nechirwan and his companions spent 3 nights in the forest near the border. The police came to dislodge them and confiscate their personal belongings.

12’29 Nechirwan: Last night, the Belarussian police stopped us at the border. They took our phone chargers and cables.

12’50 VO: For a few days now the Belarusian regime has been organising repatriation flights to Iraq. Nechirwan and his companions want to avoid deportation at all costs. They finally decided to use smugglers and try their luck this weekend.

13’06 Credits:

Karim Amin

Santi Sierra

Stéphane Kirscher

Pierre Bader