Poland’s Bieszczady Border Guard detained ten Afghanistan citizens who were trying to secretly cross Poland’s border in different locations this week, bringing the total to 80 illegal migrants who have been detained trying to enter the country this year from the Ukraine and Slovakia.
Two of Afghan migrants were caught at Poland’s southern border while four others were caught trying to pass through Biała Podlaska in northeast Poland. In third instance, border guard detained four other men from Afghanistan who said their goal was to enter France but who were unaware that they were in Poland when stopped by border police.
The first two Afghan migrants arrived from Serbia in a truck carrying plastic baskets. The men, aged 24 and 33, were detained near Pilzno in southern Poland. The owner of the truck called the police and the officers immediately informed a patrol of the local Border Guard.
The foreigners did not have any identification documents on them. During their conversation with the Border Guard officers, they very precisely described their journey to Poland.
After traveling through Iran and Turkey, they managed to illegally pass into Greece and then Serbia. With the help of a smuggler, they boarded a truck traveling to Poland.
Their destination was Western Europe, and the men had paid €9,000 for their journey.
The men admitted to having illegally crossed the border and agreed to a punishment of six months of prison in abeyance for at least 2 years. They have currently been detained in a guarded detention center for foreigners.
The Border Guard is conducting a procedure to deport the foreigners to return to their home countries.
Since the beginning of 2020, the Bieszczady Mountains Border Guard Division has detained more than 80 foreigners who have tried to illegal cross the Ukrainian and Slovakian borders into Poland. They were mainly from Afghanistan and Turkey and treated Poland as a transit country.
