Mere steps from the EU, hundreds of migrants remain stranded in Belarusian warehouse
'We want to make life good for our children,' said one migrant woman
For four days, 23-year-old Lava Azad thought her family was on the edge of starting a new life in the European Union.
After sleeping in the expansive Białowieża Forest, which straddles Belarus and Poland, for more than a week, she along with her husband and son managed to cross into Poland.
She says the family from Iraq spent four more nights sleeping in the frigid temperatures before Polish police found them and drove them 12 kilometres back to Belarus.
Now Azad, along with roughly 1,000 others, is living in a warehouse designed to store mail and packages. It is located in the town of Bruzgi, just a few hundred metres from the heavily fortified border that migrants have spent months desperately trying to cross.
"We want to make life good for our children," said Azad to a CBC crew that was given access to the warehouse by Belarusian authorities, who have been accused by their EU neighbours of manufacturing the migrant crisis as retribution for sanctions.
Makeshift migrant centre
In mid-November, around 2,000 migrants were moved into the warehouse facility as temperatures dropped and tensions rose at the section of border between Belarus and Poland.
Since then, hundreds have flown back to Syria and Iraq. Many chose to board government-chartered flights, while others were deported from Belarus.
While CBC was given permission to film inside the warehouse, border restrictions in Russia meant that if the bureau's Canadian employees left the country, they would not be able to return. So CBC sent its Moscow cameraman/editor Dmitry Kozlov and its translator/assistant Irina Vesselova to visit the centre and speak with migrants.
Inside, most have set up pallets and cardboard to try to carve out a sleeping space either under or on top of shelves. Laundry that had been washed by hand in the freezing cold outside was hung up throughout the cavernous indoor space.
Azad, whose family was sleeping in a tent on the warehouse floor, has been in Belarus for three months. She said they came here because someone told them it would be an easy route to get to Germany.
They bought plane tickets and flew from their home in Iraqi Kurdistan to Dubai and then transferred on a plane bound for Minsk, Belarus. They paid someone to drive them to the Polish border, and had hoped to pay another driver in Poland to take them to Germany.
After being returned to Belarus by Polish officers, they are now at the warehouse, fearing they could be forced to leave the country.
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Fear of deportation
Very few of the migrants in the centre were able to speak English, but most who were approached by CBC were able to communicate a few simple words, such as "No deport" and "Germany."
There are reports that many of the migrants sold their belongings back in their home countries in order to pay the thousands of dollars needed for plane tickets and transportation.
WATCH | Migrants hope for future in EU amid grim conditions in Belarus:
As a light snow fell outside of the facility, dozens of children lined up, huddled in tight rows behind a blue barrier. They waited until soldiers let them into a green tent where they were given porridge and a bag of snacks.
Nearby, a group of men chopped wood so they could maintain a fire and boil water, which they use to wash up and drink.
In the warehouse, many of the migrants remained bundled up in their winter coats. Above the noisy din, there was the frequent sound of coughing.
While CBC was at the site, a medical team from the local hospital returned an eight-month-old baby to his mother after he had to spend more than a week in the hospital.
Medical staff at the clinic on site said they have seen dozens of people for colds and low fevers. But they aren't doing any COVID-19 tests because they aren't set up for them and don't have a system in place to get consent from the migrants for testing and possible treatment.
"These people don't want [the testing]. They don't want to leave this place," said Dr. Dmitry Lyakh, a Belarusian doctor. "We even had [people] seriously ill and they do not want to leave this camp. ...in case Europe decides to let them in. "
Temporary accommodations
The warehouse is just a few hundred metres from the border with Poland. Polish officials believe around 7,000 migrants remain in Belarus waiting for a chance to try and cross.
For months, officials in the bordering countries of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have been reporting a surge of illegal crossings.
The European Commission has accused Belarus and its national airline, Belavia, of flying migrants into Minsk and tourism companies of helping them arrange visas and further transportation to the border.
Belarus's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has denied that the country has been luring migrants and pushing them toward the border as payback for sanctions levied by the EU over human rights violations and what officials called the "unlawful landing" of a Ryanair flight this past spring. The plane was diverted to Minsk, where Belarusian authorities arrested an activist-journalist, along with his girlfriend.
It's not clear how long Belarus will allow the migrants to stay in the warehouse. Besides that facility, some migrants are staying in hotels or apartments, while others are believed to be in the nearby forest.
On Nov. 26, Lukashenko visited the warehouse in Bruzgi and spoke to a large crowd of migrants gathered outside. He urged Germany to let them in, but said his country would work with the migrants if they wanted to return home.
He said that he wanted to resolve the issue by New Year's Eve.
More sanctions
On Dec. 2, Canada, the EU, the U.K. and the U.S. announced sanctions against an additional 24 Belarusian individuals and seven entities.
"The Belarusian regime must answer for its acts, which affect those both inside and outside its borders," said Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly in a statement at the time.
During a video call on Dec.10 with members of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, which includes Russia and Kazakhstan, Lukashenko said the West was using the migrant crisis as an excuse to levy more economic sanctions so it could "strangle Belarus."
On the streets of Minsk, Belarus's capital, CBC spoke with residents about the migrant crisis and their government's response.
"[The migrants] were used," said 28-year-old Andrei Arduk. "We got the fifth round of sanctions and now they are deporting them."
But nearby, a 45-year-old subway worker who only gave his first name, Pasha, found it laughable that Belarus would get the blame, adding that he thinks Poland should have just let the migrants pass through.
Now that they are in Belarus, he says the government should let them stay. "There will be enough work for them here," Pasha said.
Among the migrants, Belarus was no one's final destination. Neither was Poland.
Dunya Kanebi, 28, stressed this fact while walking down one of the aisles of the warehouse in Bruzgi, to where her husband and two daughters, aged four and six, were sitting tucked behind a cardboard divider.
"This is not a good place for my child," she said. "I want to go to a European country."
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with files from Corinne Seminoff