Construction of a controversial wall along Poland’s border began this week as the eastern European country continues to pursue hardline policies aimed at deterring migrants from crossing into its territory from neighbouring Belarus.
Environmentalists and human rights activists say the wall, which will cut through a protected forest and cost £394 million ($527m) to build, could devastate a vital biosphere while failing to create long-lasting solutions to the plight of refugees.
Running across one of Europe’s last pristine woodlands, the Bialowieza forest, the barrier will cut through a World Heritage site that is home to European bison, lynx and other endangered species.
The United Nations' heritage protection agency, Unesco, has said construction should be halted until Poland can prove the wall will not harm local wildlife.
"Poland should not move forward with this before we have the necessary assurances and our advisory body for natural heritage is convinced this can be done without impacting outstanding universal value," said Guy Debonnet, chief of Unesco's Natural Heritage Unit.
The European Commission has also called for a proper assessment of the environmental effect.
Natalia Gebert, from the Grupa Granica (Border Group) that brings aid to migrants and asylum seekers in Poland, says the wall “stops only the disabled, the weak, the sick”.
“It doesn’t stop desperate people who are fleeing danger from trying to cross,” she said.
The aid group said that in the first three weeks of 2022 it received requests for help from about 350 people, including 51 children.
Kalina Czwarnog of the Ocalenie (Deliverance) Foundation said the money for the wall, approximately 10 times the Polish migration department's entire budget for this year, could be better spent on ways of managing migration in a “humanitarian way and in line with international law”.
Poland has been locked in a geopolitical stand-off for months with Belarus, which has been accused by its neighbour and the EU of mounting a “hybrid attack” by encouraging migrants to cross into the EU member state.
At the peak of the crisis, thousands of people were stuck in the forest between the borders for weeks in freezing temperatures and subjected to alleged abuse by border guards on either side. At least 19 migrants have died in the wooded area so far.
Several refugees from the Middle East told The National about their journeys and the life-threatening entrapment they faced after being forced to camp out in the freezing woodlands after being subjected to pushbacks from both sides of the border.
Near the closed border crossing of Kuznica in eastern Poland, the ground is now being prepared for the building of a 5.5-metre metal barrier to stop would-be asylum seekers from entering.
Poland’s right-wing government says the wall, due to be completed in June, will serve the interests of all EU nations.
“The Belarusian side is ready to do anything when it comes to provocations, so we have to be ready for any kind of event,” said Major Arkadiusz Tomaszewski, deputy commander of the Border Guard in Kuznica, where clashes with migrants and Belarusian security officers took place last year.
Topped with barbed wire, the barrier will stretch the 185 kilometres along the land part of the border, which also includes the Bug River. Cameras and electronic alarm systems will be installed.
Building walls has increasingly become a go-to measure for right-wing governments seeking to block or limit access.
While Poland’s barrier seeks to block people arriving from the Middle East, one of the most infamous concrete partitions is found in the region itself. Built by the Israeli government in the early 2000s, the 708km West Bank Wall separates occupied Palestinian territory from the rest of the country.
As part of his 2016 election campaign, former US president Donald Trump famously promised to build a “big, beautiful wall” along the 2,000-mile border between the US and Mexico, allocating $15bn for its construction.
During the 2015 inflow of migrants to the EU, Hungary drew condemnation when it built a wall on its borders with Croatia and Serbia to block migration routes.
Last year, Lithuania started building a wall on its frontier with Belarus, while Poland sealed its border with Belarus using razor wire, increased the number of guards and restricted access to the frontier.
