A report by The We Are Monitoring Association said on Friday that migrants and refugees at the Poland-Belarus border had faced beatings, pepper spray, repeated pushbacks and humiliation from both Polish and Belarusian forces.
The report, titled “They Did Not Let Us Speak,” was published on the anniversary of Poland’s suspension of the right to apply for international protection. The Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported that the Polish government says the measure has helped curb illegal migration, while the interior ministry also acknowledges that migratory pressure itself has not fallen.
Based on 18 testimonies collected over the past year, the report says the policy has deepened the humanitarian crisis rather than eased it. Its authors argue that public opposition to the suspension has remained limited and that the human dimension of the border crisis has been lost.
One Sudanese migrant identified as Omar said Polish officers fired rubber bullets at his group after they crossed into Poland, then beat them and sprayed them with pepper spray.
“They did not ask any questions and did not let us speak”, he said, adding that after being fingerprinted, seven people were given one liter of water and no food. He said officers later joked that they were being taken to Germany, but instead drove them back to the border with Belarus.
Another Sudanese man, Amir, said he had fled war and hardship hoping to find safety in Europe, but was repeatedly pushed back.
“We felt as if we were not humans, but animals, treated in that way”, he said. He also said a friend, Mustafa, died near border marker 284 in late September 2025.
Marcin Sośniak, coordinator of the migration department at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, said in the report that the temporary suspension of the right to seek asylum violated both EU law and the Polish constitution.
“Contrary to what the authors of the suspension claim, this does not solve the crisis or mitigate its effects. It actually deepens it,” he said, arguing the measure was neither proportionate nor necessary and exposed people to persecution, torture, violence and other inhuman treatment.
According to figures cited in the report, the largest groups reaching the border in 2025 came from Somalia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. It said 3,164 people asked for help, 400 humanitarian interventions were carried out, and 2,077 pushbacks from Poland to Belarus were documented. It also said 400 people reported violence by Polish services, 487 by Belarusian services, and 200 by both sides.
The report added that at least 103 people died on the Poland-Belarus border from August 2021 to March 2025.
The We Are Monitoring Association said it verifies the stories it collects by checking details such as facilities, uniforms and vehicles described in the testimonies. It said events on the Belarusian side were harder to verify independently, though migrants’ accounts suggested the violence there was even more severe.
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Source: Gazeta Wyborcza, Polish Radio, OKO Press