GRAJEWO, Poland (Reuters) – Syrian physician Kassam Shahadah settled in Poland as a conflict refugee three years in the past and now volunteers on its border to assist determined Center East migrants attempting to enter after a dangerous trek via freezing forest.
He feels fortunate to have gained residence via asylum. And although he understands the identical aspirations to life within the European Union within the new wave of migrants, he has seen sufficient in his volunteer work to advise them: Do not do it this manner.
“Each baby goals of a greater life, of peace and every part that provides him pleasure and happiness. Everyone would wish to escape from that nation…It’s hell,” Shahadah mentioned, referring to his homeland from which some migrants have come.
“(However) it is a lethal route,” Shahadah, 54, mentioned within the hospital the place he works as a household physician within the northeastern Polish city of Grajewo. “I might not advise anybody to make such a journey. It is rather dangerous and sometimes ends in failure.”
About 10 migrants are believed to have died in woods alongside the border with frigid winter setting in, in response to native authorities, and lots of extra have sustained accidents or suffered with out meals or water for days.
The European Union accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of intentionally flying in Center East migrants and pushing them to illegally breach its borders into Poland and Lithuania, in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed over his suppression of protests towards his disputed re-election.
Minsk denies the accusations, however the border disaster has escalated right into a critical East-West confrontation.
Shahadah, who was drawn to Poland as a result of he studied drugs there about three a long time in the past, volunteers with a humanitarian charity coping with newly arrived migrants.
He generally steps in as an Arabic translator for hospitals treating migrants, or helps migrant households work out what occurred to family members who’ve vanished or died.
Shahadah mentioned new arrivals are petrified of being forcibly returned to Belarus. “What they’ve seen, what they’ve lived via on that aspect is a nightmare for them,” he mentioned.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Yara Abi Nader, Fedja Grulovic and Marko Djurica; Modifying by Ingrid Melander and Mark Heinrich)
