Iraqi asylum seekers go on hunger strike in Poland
Refugees at the Polish borders. Al-Arabiya image.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Ten Kurdish asylum seekers in Poland entered their third week of hunger strike on Friday to protest against their detention conditions and the slow process of their immigration applications, according to Al-Arabiya news.
“The strike started on May 4. Six Iraqis and four Turks applied for immigration and are staying in an immigration holding center in Lesznowola near the Polish capital, Warsaw,” said Dagmara Bielec-Janas, the spokesperson for the Polish Border Guard.
In a statement to AFP, the spokesperson for the hunger strikers explained that nine of the asylum seekers arrived in Poland across the borders coming from Belarus, and spent months detained in the immigration holding center.
The spokesperson, who requested to remain anonymous, also elaborated that the hunger strikers significantly lost weight, and some of them started to refuse beverages too.
Thousands of refugees and immigrants arrive in the European Union through Belarus since last year, and most of them are from Middle Eastern countries.
Poland accused Belarus of arranging the flow of immigrants, and responded with building a barbed wire fence and stopped immigrants at the borders.
Human rights activists condemned Poland’s strict approach to the issue of these immigrants while it gladly welcomed the Ukrainian war refugees.