In 2024 17,020 persons applied for international protection in Poland, out of which 14,571 were first time applicants.[1] According to the Border Guard statistics, 5,324 persons submitted an application at the Polish border crossing points placed at the EU external borders.[2] Exluding those who submitted applications at airports, there were 3,141 persons coming directly from the territory of Belarus, Russia or Ukraine.
Polish-Ukrainian border: The situation at the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing points has been subject to specific policies since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine (see Annex on Temporary Protection).
Polish-Belarus border: for conciseness, only developments on 2024 are reported in this update. For details on the situation in previous years, see previous updates to this country report available here.
Although the parliamentary elections were won by the opposition at the end of 2023 and some civil society organisations expected a change in the border policy at the Belarusian border, now, over a year later, they report that the new government has failed these expectations and the pushback practices have continued.[3]
In June 2024 the ban on entering the buffer zone – area close to the border was reintroduced. It has been prolonged several times, last time on 10 March 2025 for another 90 days.[4] With access to the Polish-Belarusian border restricted, civil society organisations called on the Polish government to address the ensuing humanitarian crisis, because the restriction prevents the provision of humanitarian assistance to people seeking international protection.[5]
In October 2024, the Council of Ministers adopted a new migration strategy for 2025- 2030, which, despite its non-binding nature, sets the government’s political direction on migration issues, including asylum. It focuses on security issues and according to NGOs, the overall language of the document is political and anti-migrant in nature.[6]
Testimonies collected by civil society organisations for 2024 include reports on the use of verbal and physical violence by the Border Guard officers towards migrants seeking to access Polish territory, such as use of firearms. A recent report published by Oxfam and Egala, a grassroot organisation in Poland directly involved in providing assistance in the area near the border lists various forms of abuse faced by people trying to cross the border, highlighting that over the course of 2024 conditions at the border continued to worsen – organisations report violence, including beatings and routine use of pepper spray.[7] The government supports further militarisation of the border area by authorising the use of firearms, a move criticised by NGOs.[8] From mid-2021 until November 2024, organisations operating at the border have been able to verify at least 88 deaths.[9] In 2024 alone, there were 5,615 requests for assistance and 1,555 individuals who were subjected to pushbacks reported, with a total of 3,183 pushbacks recorded.[10]
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also confirmed that in 2022-2024, their doctors treated injuries and harm caused to migrants who were pushed back at the Belarusian border.[11] On 4 February 2025, MSF spoke before the Polish parliament, outlining what the medical staff have witnessed in over two years at the border.[12] From November 2022 to November 2024, MSF treated 442 people stranded in the wild forests at the Poland-Belarus border, 50% of whom were suffering from physical trauma related to violence. They had sustained injuries from beatings, dog bites and rubber bullets. MSF highlighted that as a result of restricting access to the buffer zone, a large portion of the area remains inaccessible for humanitarian and medical interventions, including by MSF.[13]
In September 2024 the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights visited Poland after having sent two letters to the Polish authorities, in which the Commissioner expressed his concerns about the return practices on the Belarusian border, especially the use of firearms.[14] During the visit, the Commissioner also referred to the cases of criminalisation of persons involved in providing legal and humanitarian assistance on the border and called for any charges to be dropped. [15]
HFHR reported in 2024 on an ongoing case from 2022, when the aid workers were detained and charged with organising the unlawful crossing of the Polish-Belarusian border. After two years of proceedings, the prosecutor’s office changed the charges brought against the activists. One person was accused of providing food and clothing to persons who crossed the Polish-Belarusian border, providing them with a shelter and allegedly providing them with information useful in case they were detained by Polish law enforcement authorities. The other four persons were accused of transporting members of a migrant family “far into the country”, when in fact the distance was shorter than twenty kilometres from the border. According to the prosecution, the persons assisting met the statutory definition of the offence under Article 264a § 1 of the Penal Code, i.e. facilitating unlawful residence in the Republic of Poland. The prosecution claims that they acted intending to achieve a personal gain, not for themselves, but for the persons they were assisting. This offence is punishable by imprisonment of up to 5 years.[16] A second court hearing in the case took place on 15 April 2025. [17]
HFHR also reported a ruling from 2024 in another case in which the court in Bialystok held that the activists who violated the law forbidding access to a border zone “were motivated by compassion and a determination to help other people in difficult life-threatening conditions” and that “there is no doubt that the defendants saved the health and lives of foreigners by their actions”.[18]
Crucially, the Law on Protection was amended and the changes introducing the term “instrumentalization” of the procedure and allowing the government to temporarily suspend the asylum procedure at the Belarusian border entered into force on 26 March 2025. On 27 March 2025 on the basis of the regulation, the right to apply for international protection at the Belarusian border was suspended for 60 days. According to the law of 21 February 2025, the suspension can be further prolonged.
International jurisprudence:
On 4 April 2024 the ECtHR issued a judgement in the case Sherov and others against Poland (complaint no 54029/17 and other). The Court held that by not accepting applications for international protection from Tajik nationals in 2016-2017 and repeatedly sending them back to Ukraine, Poland infringed article 3 and 13 of the ECHR and article 4 of the Protocol no 4 to the Conventions. The Polish Border Guard were of the opinion that the foreigners’ reasons to enter Poland were of economic and personal nature.
The ECtHR have already issued judgements concerning pushbacks,[19] but the facts of the cases referred to the period before the crisis at the border in 2021. These cases have not been properly implemented by the authorities[20] and the situation of persons in need of international protection have only deteriorated since the facts of these cases took place.
On 12 February 2025, there was a hearing of the case R.A. and Others v. Poland, complaint no 42120/21, which refers directly to the crisis that started in 2021 at the Polish-Belarusian border and was followed by legislative amendments sanctioning pushbacks. Namely, the case concerns 32 Afghan nationals who fled after the Taliban took power. In August 2021, they crossed the Polish-Belarusian border irregularly and were immediately trapped in the border zone, unable to move forward because of Polish authorities and unable to return due to Belarusian forces blocking their way. Their requests for international protection were ignored, leaving them stranded without food, water, medical assistance, or shelter for weeks until they were forcibly pushed back to Belarus.[21] They maintain that they were eventually returned from Belarus to Afghanistan, where they currently reside.
The case was heard by the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR,[22] only one of ten cases against Poland ever examined by the Grand Chamber since Poland ratified the ECHR in 1993.[23]
The judgement delivered in this case will give direction in deciding in 30 other cases against Poland, Latvia and Lithuania concerning the situation of persons seeking protection at the border which are pending before the ECtHR.[24]
Already in April 2025, after the law limiting the right to apply for protection entered into force, the ECtHR granted interim measures in several cases, ordering not to send persons back to Belarus.[25] SIP reported a case of interim measure granted on 15 April 2025, which was not respected by the Polish Border Guard. SIP reported that the applicants tried to cross the border on the border crossing with Belarus holding the ECtHR interim measure issued in their case but were not let in.[26]
Domestic jurisprudence: Two legal amendments introduced in response to the crisis at the Belarusian border in 2021 have been questioned as a result of litigation before domestic courts, but remain in force as of March 2025. The first one is Regulation on cross-border movement,[27] authorising the Border Guard to turn back third-country nationals to the border line solely based on a verbal instruction and the Law on Foreigners as amended in October 2021 (specifically Article 303b of the Law on Foreigners)[28] which allows the Border Guard to issue immediately enforceable ‘orders to leave the Republic of Poland’ with regards to third-country nationals apprehended after the irregular border crossing.
It is important to note that according to HFHR, the basis upon which the Border Guard decides which procedure is applied in a given case are unclear, as it is often not possible to understand whether it was considered the person fell under the regime of the Ordinance (Regulation) or the amended Law on Foreigners (Article 303b).[29] However, according to a report realised by ECRE, in 2022 the Regulation was more frequently used in cases of persons apprehended after an irregular border crossing.[30]
According to HFHR all judgments issued by the Voivodeship Courts in 2022-2024 on pushbacks are coherent and confirm that the way of returning migrants to Belarus by the Polish Border Guard was unlawful, regardless of whether the return was based on the Regulation or on the Law on Foreigners.[31] These judgements were also described in the HFHR and SIP third party intervention in the case R.A. and Others v. Poland presented before the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR.[32]
Nevertheless, domestic case law appears to have had no influence on the practice of the relevant authorities, still in 2024.
Official statistics: Of the persons coming from Belarus who managed to submit an application for international protection in 2024, the majority did so at the Czeremcha border crossing (676 persons) and at the Terespol border crossing (594 persons). At the same time (2024), at the Polish-Belarusian border, the Border Guard reported 22,600 prevented attempts of illegal border crossing.[33] The number of formal refusals of entry on the border crossings with Belarus was 1,559. 11,687 were returned to Belarus on the basis of the Regulation on cross-border movement in 2024, while orders to leave Poland on the basis of the amended Law on Foreigners were issued towards 2,587 persons. Only 27 orders were appealed. According to the Border Guards, after apprehension 8,300 persons decided to leave Poland to Belarus voluntarily.[34] Such persons do not receive a decision on refusal or entry, or a return decision on the basis of the cross-border movement regulation decision, or an order to leave Poland on the basis of the Law of foreigners.
According to the recent HFHR’s report on persons missing at the border, from August 2021 to March 2024, 116 deaths were documented on the eastern border of the European Union (in four countries: Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland).[35] The We Are Monitoring organisation which collects data and testimonies of migrants who experienced pushbacks, reports that between January and November 2024 there were 13,600 pushbacks (this number does not refer to the number of persons, since some are repeatedly subject to pushbacks).
Border monitoring. Official border monitoring is based on an agreement between UNHCR for Central Europe and the Border Guards Headquarters of 21 October 2009. The monitoring visits are to be conducted by the NGO Halina Niec Legal Aid Center and should, according to UNHCR, take place once a month. The reports from these visits are not publicly available. UNHCR indicated that its monitoring activities are conducted at official border crossing points, Border Guard posts and registration centres along the Polish-Belarusian border.[36] The Border Guard confirmed that in 2024, UNHCR monitoring of border posts – especially on the external border – was performed regularly.[37] On the other hand, one of the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur to grant full access to the border area by Poland and Belarus to civil society organisations and independent monitoring mechanisms as “it is important to ensure that a strong and independent role is played by local civil society in both countries, as well as to allow international organisations to conduct in situ monitoring”[38] remained ignored and the situation actually worsened with the ban on entering the buffer zone reinstated in June 2024 (see supra). The situation at the border crossing point in Terespol after the ban on access to the border zone had been reintroduced was monitored by the Ombudsperson.[39] The Ombudsperson – together with the Ombudsperson for Children expressed concerns about the unaccompanied minors crossing the border (see Representation of unaccompanied minors).[40]
Readmission agreements. Poland signed the readmission agreements with the EU Member States (both bilateral and multilateral). There were no new agreements signed in 2024.[41] In 2024 421 persons were readmitted to Poland and 926 persons from Poland to other countries.[42]
| Poland – readmission agreements with EU Member States
I. Bilateral agreements I.I. with EU Member States within the Schengen zone
I.II. with EU Member States outside the Schengen zone
II. Multilateral agreements
|
Legal access to the territory
There are no means (for example, in the form of corridors or resettlement or relocation) beyond family reunification to legally access the Polish territory for persons with protection needs.
The Polish government announced on 1 June 2023 that it will not cooperate with the mandatory migrant relocation scheme proposed in the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum.[45] In April 2024, the new government expressed its support for this position.[46] In February 2025, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reiterated his opposition to the Pact on Migration and Asylum; stating his government would not implement the Pact if it involved mandatory migrant quotas.[47]
[1] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 19 February 2025.
[2] Information provided by the Border Guard, 7 March 2025.
[3] We are monitoring Society, I want to stay in Poland, 13 December 2024, available here.
[4] Ordinance from 6 March 2025 introducing a temporary ban on staying in the Belarus border buffer zone, available in Polish here.
[5] Norwegian Refugee Council, Poland: Urgent action needed for refugees trapped in Europe’s ‘death zone’, 10 July 2024, available here.
[6] Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, ’Uwagi krytyczne Helsińskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka do strategii migracyjnej’, 15 November 2024, available in Polish here.
[7] Oxfam and Egala, Brutal Barriers, report, March 2025, available here.
[8] HFHR, ‘Negatywna opinia do zmian w zakresie używania środków przymusu bezpośredniego przez Straż Graniczną, Policję oraz żołnierzy Sił Zbrojnych’, 1 July 2024, available in Polish here.
[9] We Are Monitoring, ‘Data Dashboard’, 15 January 2025, available here.
[10] Information provided to Oxfam by We Are Monitoring, January 2025; see Oxfam and Egala, Brutal Barriers, report, March 2025, available here.
[11] Medecins Sans Frontieres, Death, Despair and Destitution. The Human Costs of EU’s Migration Policies, February 2024, report available here, 29.
[12] Magdalena Chrzczonowicz, ‘„Fasadowe konsultacje”. Sejm wysłuchał organizacji ws. prawa do azylu. Ale zdania nie zmieni’ (OKO.press, 4 February 2025), available in Polish here.
[13] Médecins Sans Frontières, Trapped between borders, January 2025, available in PL here.
[14] Council of Europe Commissionner for Human Rights, ‘Poland: all laws and practices related to the situation on the border with Belarus should comply with human rights standards’, 23 July 2024, available here.
[15] Council of Europe Commissionner for Human Rights, ‘Poland needs to respect its international human rights obligations on the Belarusian border, says Commissioner O’Flaherty’, 23 September 2024, available here.
[16] HFHR, ‘I didn’t think there was a law punishing the donation of food, drink, clothes and medicine to a person in need’ – indictment against activists delivering humanitarian aid on the border ‘I didn’t think there was a law punishing the donation of food, drink, clothes and medicine to a person in need’ – indictment against activists delivering humanitarian aid on the border’, 14 May 2024, available here.
[17] Information provided by Grupa Granica on facebook funpage, 15 April 2025.
[18] Judgement of the District Court in Bialystok, 20 May 2024, ref. no. VIII Ka 131/24.
[19] M. Łysienia, Pushbacki w Polsce w ocenie Europejskiego Trybunału Praw Człowieka, Laboratorium Migracji, 11 August 2023, available in Polish here.
[20] Information about the expert meeting, 29 March 2024, available here.
[21] SIP, ‘Sprawa R.A. i inni przeciwko Polsce – co jest stawką?’, 19 February 2025, available in Polish here.
[22] ECtHR, ‘Grand Chamber hearings concerning Latvia, Lithuania and Poland’, 12 February 2025, available here.
[23] SIP, ‘R.A. and Others v. Poland – What’s at Stake?’, 19 February 2025, available here.
[24] HFHR, ‘Interweniujemy przed ETPC w sprawach pushbacków na granicy z Białorusią’, 30 October 2024, available in Polish here.
[25] SIP, ‘Zawieszenie prawa do azylu „na granicy białoruskiej”, czyli gdzie?’, 3 April 2025, available in Polish here.
[26] SIP, ‘Polska nie zastosowała się do decyzji Trybunału w Strasburgu i zawróciła uchodźców do Białorusi’, 18 April 2025, avaialble in Polish here.
[27] Ordinance of the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration of 20 August 2021 amending the Ordinance on Temporary Suspension or Restriction of Border Traffic at Certain Border Crossings (Journal of Laws 2021, item. 1536).
[28] Article 303b in conjunction with Article 303(1)9a of the Law on Foreigners, introduced by the Law of 14 October 2021 amending the Law on Foreigners and other Acts of Law (Journal of Laws 2021, item. 1918).
[29] HFHR, Legal brief on judgements in cases involving expedited returns of migrants to Belarus, December 2022, page 1, footnote 1, available (EN) here.
[30] ECRE, Seeking refuge in Poland. A fact-finding report on access to asylum and reception conditions for asylum seekers, February 2023, page 11, available (EN) here.
[31] See judgements of Voivodeship Administrative Court in Bialystok, no II SA/Bk 71/24, II SA/Bk 72/24, II SA/Bk 145/23, II SA/Bk 244/23, no II SA/Bk 492/22, 493/22 and 494/22. Judgment of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw no IV SA/Wa 420/22 of 26 April 2022, judgement no IV SA/Wa 471/22 of 27 April 2022, judgment no. IV SA/Wa 615/22 of 20 May 2022; judgment no IV SA/Wa 772/22 of 27 May 2022.
[32] See HFHR and SIP third party intervention in the case R.A and Others v. Poland, available here.
[33] This is not the number of persons, please note that some attempts are repeated.
[34] Information provided by the Border Guards, 7 March 2025.
[35] HFHR, Disappearances on the Polish-Belarusian border. Pushbacks as a factor in enforced disappearances in Poland, 2024, available here.
[36] ECRE, Seeking refuge in Poland. A fact-finding report on access to asylum and reception conditions for asylum seekers, February 2023, available (EN) here page 16.
[37] Information provided by the Border Guard, 7 March 2025.
[38] Visit to Poland – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales, 21 April 2023, available (EN) here.
[39] RPO, Informacja o działalności Rzecznika Praw Obywatelskich październik – grudzień 2024 r, available in Polish here.
[40] RPO, Informacja o działalności Rzecznika Praw Obywatelskich październik – grudzień 2024 r, available in Polish here.
[41] The Border Guard Headquarters’ letter to HFHR, 21 March 2023.
[42] Information provided by the Border Guards, 7 March 2025.
[43] Agreement related to the readmission of persons in an irregular situation, Brussels, 29 March 1991.
[44] European agreement on transfer of responsibility for refugees, Strasburg, 16 October 1980.
[45] Euractiv, Poland opposes EU Commission’s migrant relocation scheme, 1 June 2023, available here.
[46] Euractiv, Tusk vows to ‘protect’ Poland against EU migrant relocation, 11 April 2024, available here.
[47] Jorge Liboreiro, ‘Poland will not implement Migration Pact, Donald Tusk tells Ursula von der Leyen’ (Euronews, 7 February 2025), available here.