Members of the Muslim Worship Community mosque in the village of Bohoniki have begun cooking meals for the Polish soldiers and officers active protecting the border. According to Polish tabloid Fakt, each day, the Muslims prepare 300 servings of warm soup which is later delivered to the border crossing in Kuźnica.
On Monday, four women offered to help with the cooking and said that anyone would love a warm meal when they had to stand guard for several hours. What’s more, it turns out that not only Muslims are taking part in the cooking gesture, as they are also helped by a Catholic woman.
The soup itself is prepared from the products donated by the local community, schools and private individuals.
“Soldiers stood at the crossroads in our town recently. We had some soup, so I told my friend, ‘Come, let’s go and take warm food to do them.’ The soldiers said that they had never seen such kind people,” one of the women said.
The organizer of the whole operation, the head of the Bohoniki Muslim Worship Community, Maciej Szczęsnowicz, explained why the community decided to make such a gesture towards Polish soldiers.
“Our first initiative involved helping the migrants, but we also wanted to do something for the soldiers. We want to show that as Polish Muslims, we have been here for hundreds of years, and we show solidarity with both sides. We want to help both sides,” he said.
Szczęsnowicz added that he is the only one who has a pass allowing him entry to territory currently under the state of emergency, so he is personally responsible for delivering the meals.
He also admitted that he was working extreme overtime, amounting to nearly 24 hours a day, and “would work until he ran out of strength.”
The small community of Sunni Muslim Lipka Tatars have been living in Eastern Poland for more than 600 years.
