Deaths and Disappearances at the Polish-Belarusian Border
Since 2021, deliberate actions by Belarusian state authorities have led to a vast increase of people irregularly crossing the border from Belarus into the EU. Instead of addressing this humanitarian crisis, the Polish government worsened it by responding with pushbacks, which were grounded in domestic law, in violation of its international obligations and domestic law. Those actions worsened the crisis, which lead to many deaths and disappearances.
The aim of the project is to assess how Poland’s framework on missing persons has been applied to disappearances and unidentified deaths on the border, as well as provide recommendations for improvements. The project will engage with humanitarian activists, who have so far recorded deaths and disappearances. Furthermore, together with civil society, a monitoring of police stations will be conducted, to understand how claims to search for missing migrants have been accepted and processed.
