He said, ‘Sign this paper’, and when we refused to sign he said he would not give us the food. Taye’s pushback.

Taye stayed in the Polish-Belarusian border region from July to September 2024. During this period, he was pushed back from Poland five times. The first four times, he was spotted by Border Guard officers shortly after crossing the border and then returned to the eastern side without being taken to the Border Guard facility or signing any documents. During some pushbacks he experienced violence. He reports that he was beaten with hands and batons, kicked and sprayed with tear gas. The man says that in the presence of officers he stated that he wants to apply for international protection in Poland, but the officers laughed at his declaration:

Yeah, at first we said ‘I want asylum in Poland’, and most of the time you say that they will just laugh at you, they will laugh and they will not consider you seriously, and they will push you back. And that’s what happened during the first four attempts.

During the fifth border crossing, Taye was in a group of seven men from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. At around three o’clock in the morning, they managed to cross the fence. A few hours later, they were reached by people from a non-governmental humanitarian organisation. Taye recounts that in their presence the men once again declared that they want to apply for international protection in Poland. After signing the power of attorney and according to the will of Taye, the Border Guard was called to the site and arrived within an hour.

The entire group was taken to a Border Guard facility. When they arrived, Taye reports that they were first searched and then separated. Three people, including him, were put in one room and the other four were put in another. Taye does not know the fate of the rest of the group.

According to his account, the Border Guard presented five documents written in Amharic to those gathered in the room. Taye had no objection to four of them. They were comprehensible and appeared to be a part of a standard procedure for applying for international protection in Poland. According to Taye’s account, the fifth document, the content of which the officer initially refused to disclose, concerned a three-year entry ban to the Schengen area and a declaration of intention to leave Poland. The officer allegedly pressured the men to sign the document immediately, without reading its contents. Afterwards, he attempted to coerce the men to sign the document by placing food in front of them and telling them that they would only receive it once they had signed the document. In addition, they were handcuffed with zip ties, which caused them pain and circulation problems.

There were five papers that he brought, five documents, and then the four papers you’d read it, you’d understand it, and you’d agree to it, so the four papers there it was no problem, but the fifth paper he would not allow you to read it, he wouldn’t even show you the contents of it, he’d just say sign here […] and the language that was used in these documents was Amharic. […] So after we arrived at the Border Guard station, the soldier there, he brought us food first and then he gave us the wrong paper, the wrong documentation saying that ‘I don’t want to stay in Poland, I want to leave Poland’, and things that we disagree on. He said, ‘Sign this paper’, and when we refused to sign he said he would not give us the food that he brought if we didn’t sign, and he tried to force us and manipulate us to sign this paper. […] Yeah, you know, the papers that they gave us later at the fifth attempt, out of the three of us they made us sign the paper that says for three years you cannot enter the Schengen areas.

Taye and the others eventually signed all the documents presented to them. After some time, the men were taken from the facility to the border fence. They were given back the documents that had been confiscated during the interrogation, and a phone in which the charging socket had previously been destroyed. According to Taye’s account, they cut their zip ties and then pushed them through a gate in the barrier.

The humanitarians were nice and they helped us, we were hungry and they gave us clothes, they gave us everything and they were helping us, but after we arrived at the Border Guard station and later when we were being taken from the Border Guard station to the border, we didn’t know where we were going, we were just told to get into the car, and after we get into the car they grab our phones and broke our phones and they cut the plastic handcuffs that were on us, and they opened this gate and they pushed us back. That’s how it went. […] They [the border guards] were more laughing at each other, they were laughing at us and at the time we were angry because you know, we were pushed back and about the situation that was happening at the time. And they were laughing, they were making fun of us.

After the pushback, Taye contacted the humanitarian organisation that had previously helped him in the forest. He informed the organisation’s staff about the pushback, but shortly after his phone disconnected. While walking along with two other men who had been pushed back, he encountered Belarusian soldiers who brutally beat them and then drove them out of the border area.

The charge on my phone was only like 10% so because it was only 10% the battery got low and my phone shut down. And then after my phone shut down we met the Belarusian soldiers, and they were very harsh, they beat us up, there was a lot of beating, a lot of violence from the Belarusian side, and after they beat us up, they took us away, and that is pretty much what happened.

During the interview, Taye compared the behaviour of Polish and Belarusian officers.

But we experienced a lot of bad things both from the Belarusian and the Polish side, and both of them were unfair to us, and Polish was much better, but even despite that, you know, the way he used food as a bargaining chip, a bargaining thing, you know, depriving of the most basic human right as simple as food, this is unacceptable and like we suffered before we arrived at the fifth pushback, because we tried four times before that and what they did was unfair, but it is what it is, and we are past that, and now I am in a different position, thank God for that.