Since 2021, individuals seeking sanctuary in the European Union (EU) have attempted to cross the border from Belarus only to face severe violence in the remote and densely forested border area. While the Belarusian government is alleged to have orchestrated the increase in people attempting the crossing since 2021, the absence of safe pathways to the EU has left people needing refuge with no other option than to take perilous journeys, including across the Belarusian-EU green border. People crossing this border have, as a result, been depicted as threats and weapons in a supposed “hybrid war” directed by Belarus and Russia. This rhetoric has justified increasingly repressive, violent and militarised means against people seeking protection in the EU.

In Poland, the erection of border barriers, domestic “legalisation” of pushbacks, large-scale deployment of military troops, and the systematic denial of access to territory and assistance for those seeking sanctuary in the EU since 2021 have left people stranded in wild forests, exposed to violence and indefinitely rebuffed across the border between Belarus and Poland. These policies have led to a continuous cycle of violence, trapping individuals seeking protection in the EU between fences while they struggle to survive amidst physical assaults Since the spring of 2024, a perception of increasingly organised crossings from Belarus and the fatal stabbing of a Polish soldier at the border have triggered a further escalation of violence.