CDMX, Mexico. – “Trying to reach Poland, on January 16, the Belarusian guards captured us and took us to a deserted place. There they emptied our belongings on the ground and sent us to our knees with pistols. They put a boot on Michael’s head and pressed down on him, as if burying him. At that moment he told me softly: ‘they are going to kill us‘. I shed a tear, I thought it was the end”, says Mario.
Mario Alberto Céspedes Pérez and Michael Méndez Vega left Cuba for Moscow, even though they had wanted to fly to Nicaragua and reach the southern border of the United States. They left on October 13, in time to set foot on the border before it was closed to irregular immigrants. But the journey through Central America, on average, required 10 times more money than the cost of a ticket to Russia, and they did not have that amount.
With no other option, the plan for both was to settle in Moscow, work a little, save the essentials and then move to Spain. For three months they took every job that came up. Temporary jobs in which they exploited them for being illegal, paid them less than the established amount or simply stopped paying them because who were going to claim two tourists without a work permit? Russia, as described by several CubansIt is not a friendly country.
On January 11, 90 days after arriving in Moscow, they left for Minsk, the capital of Belarus. In the last two years, thousands of people have tried to reach the European Union by crossing from Belarus into Poland, Lithuania or Latvia. Despite the geographical distance, Cubans, along with nationals from Iraq and Sierra Leone, are among the migrants who tried the most to reach Poland from belarus last year, according to a report from the Polish Border Guard.
To slow down, Poland has raised a border fence five meters high and more than 190 kilometers long. But what wall stops who flees from hunger, war, death or persecution?
It has also placed its armed forces along the 600 kilometer line that divides the country from its neighbor; and even declared a state of emergency along its border area. This has justified restricting access to aid organizations, volunteer groups and the media. Migrants and refugees were left totally alone and vulnerable once they reached the dividing line.
On the other side, the Belarusians also have a paramilitary body that persecutes those who try to cross their borders. However, there are always blind spots through which travelers manage to slip, and that is what the Cubans bet on.
For six days, Michael and Mario wandered along the Belarusian border as simple chips in a macabre game where the soldiers decided the rules and they, disposable undocumented immigrants, participated to achieve the longed-for prize: cross Poland and step on the European Union.
The setting of this game was a deserted and frozen area on the border of Belarus belonging to the city of Halynka. There during the day the average temperatures for January reach six degrees below zero; and when night comes they descend even more. No matter how bundled up you are, freezing weather hardens your body until you lose feeling.
the snatch
“After passing the first fence between Belarus and Poland, we reached no man’s land; there we sat down to rest because we were exhausted and also because we assumed that if we had already left Belarus behind, their soldiers were not going to chase us”.
That was a big mistake because the officers got there and hunted them down with dogs and weapons. Later they put them in a van along with a group of Syrians with the false promise that they would leave them closer to Polish territory. What they actually did was take them away from Poland and move them to the north, near Lithuania, in a forest area where there are wild animals and a river, which they were ordered to cross.
It was night and the waters were icy, so the Cubans decided to wait until the next day to launch. While the other group of migrants moved, Mario and Michael fell asleep next to a pine tree and woke up to the screams of a military couple patrolling the area.
“There began another attack of kicks and punches. They ordered us to cross the river for our lives.” The two from Las Tunas tried, but how do you swim in frozen waters that stab the skin? “It was suicide to advance on that river. In addition, entering through Lithuania only took us further away from Spain, which was our objective. For these reasons we preferred to move through the forest so they wouldn’t find us”.
The two Cubans, almost out of supplies, walked for two days until they reached a small town called Yakúovichi Jakubyčv. There they thought they would be safe because they had definitely entered Belarus legally. However, at a bus stop, they were detected by the border patrol and forced to get into their car.
They implored the soldiers to let them return to Russia and showed them that they had bought a ticket, but the military had no intention of letting them return. The primary rule of the game was that they could not return to Moscow, but rather cross into Lithuania.
Several border countries, including Lithuania, have accused Belarus of concocting this migratory flow with Russia, its ally, and promoting illegal crossings to its borders. From each side of the dividing line they push people who try to apply for asylum, without taking into account their intentions to request international protection and violating their rights. They expose them to extreme climates where they can lose their lives from hypothermia. According to a report from Doctors without bordersat least 21 migrants died in 2021 on this dividing line, while dozens remain missing.
The goal they never reached
Once again they were taken to the Lithuanian border, but in a much more distant position than before, where there was not even a connection. At that time Mario posted on Facebook a kind of farewell and shared its location. “I wrote my will on Facebook so they would know where to find us if we died, and so my family would know that I tried until the last moment. I left Cuba for them, so that they could live as people”.
In Puerto Padre, Las Tunas, his three children, his wife, his stepson, his mother and his grandmother are waiting for him. They all live in a little house as poor as the word allows to imagine, built with the rubble left by a hurricane in 2008. Only now is the family able to start building a new house.
“Again we tried to cross the river and again we knew that we were not going to make it. As a last alternative I climbed a pine tree to see if I could get a telephone signal from there and fortunately it was possible”.
Thanks to the fact that Mario speaks English, he was able to communicate with the Russian emergency number, which located his counterparts in Lithuania and Russia. While they waited for someone to come for them and help them, he noticed that Michael’s skin was beginning to turn purple, so they both decided to move a little and get away from the frozen river.
“In the networks I saw publications that said that they had rescued us, but there really was no rescue as such, nor medical assistance. On the contrary, the Belarusians treated us like beasts and forced us to walk at a speed that we couldn’t because we didn’t have the strength”.
At that point in the journey they no longer had water or food; her extremities had lost almost all feeling. Mario’s shoes fell off his feet and the guards forbade him to pick them up; they just yelled at them to run to the van. At the Grodno train terminal, Mario (40 years old) arrived in stockings and almost frozen, but his friend, Michael (56 years old), was even more affected.
Since the 20th both are in Moscow. Some friends gave him shelter for charity because they spent what little they had saved before the journey that led nowhere. The rest were taken by the Belarusian guards.
Both of their feet have only gotten worse. They don’t know if they are at risk of amputation: they are visibly burned from the cold and very swollen. Michael’s injuries are more serious; for that reason he was transferred to a hospital. Mario continues to take anti-inflammatories on his account, since he does not have the money to pay for a consultation.
