==

We are here for the first time and full of hope, so at first we don't
understand that 19-year-old Turki decides to return to the forest. He
hides the folded asylum application on his chest and says that he is
going back. Back to his brother who stayed in the forest on the other
side, ten kilometers away in Belarus.

We pack him a backpack, military rations, powerbanks, sleeping bags and tents.
The backpack is very heavy. We give him a cap, Ewelina her gloves, Albert his
shoes, which  leaves him in socks in the forest, but thanks to these shoes
Turki has a better chance to walk ten kilometers through the forest at night.
He has to be very careful because the Belarusians have announced that they will
kill him if they catch him again.

The American television crew is touched by Albert's gesture, and at the end of
that night they ask us why we are doing this, why we are helping. I answer that
if my daughter were in the forest, I would help her too. If my brother were in
the forest, exhausted and dying of cold and hunger, I would stand up for him
too. That they are equal people - someone else's daughters, brothers, mothers,
fathers.

Turki checks his phone. If he had contact with his brother, he could write to
him that he is seeking asylum, that we have placed a backpack under a tree for
him and let him know the location, but the phone is dead, because the people on
the Belarusian side have only a cell phone and a very weak battery. Turki goes
into the forest. The contact breaks. I wonder who he was, what he liked, what
he dreamed about. 19-year-old Turki.

We call the border guards and tell them that we are waiting with refugees and
the American television crew. We wait several hours for them to arrive. They
call and say they can't find us even though we gave them a location. Finally,
we go to their station to pick them up. They try very hard and are human. We
heard only bad stories, about screaming and threats, about indifference. Now
they treat everyone with respect. We don't know if it's because of the
international cameras or just human reflexes. It doesn't matter. Rami and Momen
have gone from being unprotected game to being human again - Yemeni citizens
seeking international protection in Poland.

We return home at 7 o'clock. They say activists don't sleep. It is true.
Another day means calling Lipsk to get information about the situation of our
Yemenis. Asylum cases are opened. I am their authorized representative and
therefore I get informed about the events by the border guards. We make an
appointment for the next day in Lipsk, 150 kilometers from our location. We are
allowed to bring clothes and hygiene items for Rami and Momen. I am grateful. I
have a feeling that maybe it will work out.

== Inhuman faces
On the second day of our mission, we are informed that a larger group of
Congolese refugees has appeared at the library in Gródek. We go there. The
police and the border guards inform us that we should not approach the
foreigners because one of them has been diagnosed with covid and we have to go
into quarantine.

A girl is lying motionless on the wet grass. We are accompanied by a
French-speaking journalist from Onet [online information portal - translator's
note]. It turns out that the girl's name is Amélie, she is 16 years old and has
been sick since the age of six. The girl does not move, and I ask if an
ambulance has been called. A border guard explains that Amélie has not
registered a need. It is difficult to declare a need when you are lying on the
wet floor in pain and barely conscious.

I call the emergency services:
- "I want to call an ambulance for a 16-year-old girl lying outside the
  library in Gródek," I begin.
- "Is she breathing?" the employee asks me.
- "I don't know."
- "What people!" She is indignant at my lack of empathy. "Please go to
  her and check!" she instructs me.
- "But I can't because the border officials won't let me see her ..."
- Silence falls.
- "Isn't she Polish?"
- "I don't know ...", I answer, already sensing that no one will come if
  the 16-year-old is not Polish. In Poland, in the Podlasie region,
  ambulances only come to Polish children.
- "If the border guards are there and haven't called for help, it means
  she's not needed!"
- "But the girl is unconscious and freezing, I insist that the ambulance
  comes."
- "Well, it will come, but I don't know when, because we have a lot of
  calls!"

The conversation ends. Later, when the girl is already being dragged to the
border patrol car, I get a call from the ambulance service. My call had been
unjustified. I would have to learn in which situations to call an ambulance! I
ask when the call was justified, if not in the case of a teenager lying
unconscious on the floor in front of the library?

Border guards and police officers become silent when TVN [Polish private
channel - translator's note] turns on its cameras. The cameras act like a
tranquilizer. Our personal details are taken again, the Congolese are driven
back to Bobrowniki, and their trail disappears. I wonder who she was, what she
liked, what she dreamed about. The 16-year-old Amélie.

Translation to german: moku
Translation to english: alice, dah
Annotation:
Names partially changed by the editors. The situation in the forest described
in the text was filmed by ABC and can be found at the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdqxFb5vlU

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people who desperately need it!
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