The Syrian Abou Elias himself went through the migration journey to Europe on his own in 2014.
Siemiatycze, Poland:
Suffering relatives of migrants trapped in the woods along the Polish-Belarusian border are heading to Polish border towns in hopes of helping their loved ones escape violence from border forces escalated and the temperature dropped sharply.
Among them is a Syrian living in Sweden who is desperate to find her daughter, Hilda Naaman, a 25-year-old doctor who is en route to Europe from Syria.
The man, who identified himself as Abou Elias, said she had spent 25 days at the border hungry and thirsty and was recovering from being beaten by Belarusian border guards.
“She can’t walk anymore. My daughter’s fingernails have been pulled. Belarusians come at night, beat them with electric sticks … tell them to come to Poland. Poles greet them just to bring them back,” Abou Elias said.
The European Union accuses Minsk of creating a migrant crisis on its eastern border as part of a “mixed attack” on the bloc – distributing Belarusian visas in the Middle East, flying under the radar. migrants and then push them to cross the border illegally.
Belarus denies causing the crisis, but also says it cannot help solve it unless Europe lifts existing sanctions.
Abou Elias himself went through his own migratory journey to Europe in 2014, where he says he fell into “a smuggler’s trap”. He feared the same thing had happened to his daughter.
She barely contacted him, had lost her phone. He said that, according to what she told him several times they spoke before, the Belarusian authorities were asking migrants to pay about $100 to charge 20% of their phone batteries.
Belarusian authorities did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment, but have denied violence against migrants in the past.
No Polish help
Abou Elias said Polish police repeatedly pushed his daughter and other migrants into Belarus, sometimes with dogs, despite repression from Belarus.
“She’s here, 40 kilometers away, they’re playing with us… Poland won’t let them in, and the other country (Belarus) won’t let them back in. They’re not human. They’re monsters monster, monster, monster,” he said through tears.
Polish border guards did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
He said that his daughter had recently managed to contact him via a borrowed phone, informing of her plans to go to Germany soon. Now, he also hopes to go there to wait for her, but he doesn’t know what will come.
“I’m dead, I have no feelings. I’m a dead person,” he told Reuters. “They’re playing with each other, back and forth, and who’s the fuel? These people, these poor people.”
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
