18 November 2002
Two Chechen families accompanied by Polish TV allowed to enter Poland
Polish border guards on November 15 allowed two Chechen families to enter Poland. The two families, which consisted of 17 people - 12 adults
and 5 children - had been previously turned back on the grounds of Poland's 1997 law that allowed the authorities to bar out undesirable persons.
The families were accompanied by a crew of Poland's TVP1 channel, which had arrived in Brest by permission of the Belarusian authorities. It was the Polish journalists who suggested that the families make another attempt to cross the border in order to find out whether they would be admitted this time and cover the event, Dmitry Devyatov,
press secretary of the Brest Border Control Unit, told BelaPAN. Representatives of Belarusian and Russian media outlets, as well as officials of Russia's Consulate General also traveled with the Chechens. Belarusian border guards helped the families buy tickets to a local train from Brest to Poland's border town of Terespol and even delayed its
departure by fifteen minutes so that the Chechens could catch it.
In Terespol, the families were met by the local post executive. They were given a hot meal and necessary medicines. The families applied for political asylum. The application is to be considered in Warsaw where they will be taken within the next few days.
This was the first admission of Chechen migrants into Poland in more than three weeks, observers in Brest say. The Polish authorities began to turn back Chechens and other people from Russia's Caucasian region on October 26 following the hostage-taking in Moscow. According to the Brest border control authorities, as of November 14, 285 people, most of them being Russian Chechens, were not
allowed to enter Poland.
Many of the "refuseniks" still stay in Brest, hoping that they will soon be allowed to cross the border into Poland. Most of them have not registered with the local police thus breaking Belarus' regulations of foreigners' stay in the country. On Friday, police officers visited Chechens who rented lodging in Brest to warn them that they would be
fined for their failure to register. However, most of the Chechen migrants do not have money to pay the fines, Arkady Kostyuchik, a departmental chief with the local police, told BelaPAN. Under Belarus' regulations, foreigners who commit an administrative offense may be expelled from
Belarus, but the government would have to pay their fares to travel back to Russia. The Belarusian authorities hope that the Russian Embassy in Minsk and the Russian Consulate General in Brest will manage to resolve the problem and the Chechens will leave Brest, Mr. Kostyuchik said.
http://brestonline.com/en/news/news306.html