Extracts from academic Kasia Narkowicz’s harrowing account of her trek on the Poland-Belarus border,
| [. . .] We are in the Białowieża Forest, about ten kilometers from the border wall that Poland’s government built in 2021 at a cost of over 350 million euros. The wall was constructed to prevent people from traveling into the EU from Belarus via Europe’s last primeval forest along the border. I am here as part of an international academic seminar with colleagues and comrades who work on borders globally. [. . .] The 5.5-meter-high steel wall is topped with concertina wire, which is responsible for the most common injuries to people on the move. The borderland is made up of difficult terrain with swamps, rivers, and fallen-down trees. One wrong step, and someone unfamiliar with the area could get stuck in a swamp. [. . .] One night in April 2023, Mohammad fell from a wall along the border between Poland and Belarus, which stands five and a half meters tall. He had traveled from Lebanon, where he had been displaced by the Syrian war. Mohammad was a 58-year-old Syrian from Daraa, a key location for the civil uprising that preceded the war, as well as an area devastated by drought. |
For full account click here.