On the other end of the line, Javed sounds worried and tired. "Our situation here is getting worse every day," he shares with The New Arab . "Some of my comrades have been locked up here for eight months, others for ten. This situation is generating a lot of stress and tension."
His voice trails off for a moment, then he adds, "There have already been several suicide attempts in this camp."
Like Javed, dozens of Afghan refugees are currently being held in closed centres in Poland. Most were arrested by Polish police after irregularly crossing the Belarusian border; others were apprehended as they were about to cross into Germany. They were then placed in detention, without the possibility of applying for asylum in this Eastern European country. There are at least five such closed centres in Poland, located in the cities of Biala Podlaska, Bialystok, Przemysl, Ketrzyn and Lesznowola. Today, Javed and his compatriots face the risk of deportation to Afghanistan, a country controlled by the Taliban since their return to power in 2021 . "I am entering the ninth month of my detention," sighs Javed, locked up in the Biala Podlaska centre, a city in eastern Poland.
Since his arrest by Polish police in late summer 2025, he has repeatedly stated his intention to seek asylum in Poland. But each time, the officers ignored his request. "I have presented them with all the evidence of the threats I received in Afghanistan, but the police do not care. They kept saying, 'You went through Belarus, you can't apply for asylum,'" he laments. Pushbacks spark rights concerns When questioned by The New Arab , the Polish Interior Ministry stated that "currently 93 Afghan nationals are being held in guarded centres for foreign nationals," making them "the second-largest ethnic group currently remaining in these institutions."
Of these 93 individuals, the ministry added, "seven individuals are currently in the process of obtaining international protection," and "86 people are currently undergoing the return procedure."
In March 2025, the Polish government passed a law suspending the right of migrants arriving irregularly across the Belarusian border to apply for international protection.
Authorities justified this decision, which has been repeatedly extended since, by citing the situation in the region.
Since 2021, refugees from the Middle East and East Africa have been attempting to cross this border into Europe. "Our observations show that border guards refuse to accept applications for international protection not only from people in the border area , but also from those present in other parts of the country (for example, in supervised centres for foreigners)," says the Polish NGO Stowarzyszenie.
"Those whose applications are not accepted are then immediately returned to Belarus or sent back to their country of origin, without any assessment of their personal circumstances or their protection needs," the human rights organisation added. Despite the attention of human rights NGOs, several cases of deportations to Afghanistan have already taken place in recent weeks. The Polish Ministry of the Interior told The New Arab that it had "recently revised the list of countries to which forced returns have been suspended" and specified that, after "a thorough analysis of the decisions (…), returns to Afghanistan and other countries were resumed on 13 June 2025."
Four deportations of Afghan exiles took place in 2025, and 13 have already been carried out in 2026, according to the ministry's data. Lawyers contest deportations On 10 April, Polish authorities organised an operation to return nine Afghan refugees detained in these centres to Kabul.
"You never know when an eviction will take place," says Javed, who witnessed this eviction operation in the centre of Biala Podlaska. "The police came in the middle of the night, there were 10 officers for one person. They forcibly put six of my compatriots into a vehicle, heading towards the airport," adds the refugee. This deportation operation was challenged by lawyers before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). An investigation by the Polish investigative media outlet OKO.press revealed that the Court issued provisional measures concerning the nine individuals, which should have suspended the deportation, but Polish authorities nevertheless decided to deport three Afghan refugees to Afghanistan. A decision that sparked the ire of lawyer Tomasz Sieniow, who defended several Afghan refugees in this case, on LinkedIn. "My client was deported even though we had obtained provisional measures from the ECHR!" exclaimed another lawyer, speaking anonymously to The New Arab . In a letter to the Polish Minister of the Interior published on 1 April, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O'Flaherty, said he was "concerned" about the situation of these Afghan refugees and recalled that "the European Court of Human Rights requires States to carry out a rigorous and individualised assessment of the risks faced by each person before expelling them." Fears grow In an email to The New Arab, the Polish Ministry of the Interior unequivocally asserts that: "Polish deportation procedure does not entail the risk of collective expulsion of foreign nationals nor any breach of the Convention of Human Rights." It adds that "each case is examined individually by the Border Guard, taking into account the individual's personal circumstances and the situation in their country of origin."
Contacted by The New Arab , the Polish Ombudsman stressed that "Afghanistan remains a dangerous country, affected by a serious humanitarian and human rights crisis, as well as persistent internal instability" and warned that "people returned to Afghanistan could be subject to threats to their life, liberty, personal security, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment." "Since their expulsion, we have completely lost contact with these three people," explains Hosnia, a member of the Podróżnych collective ( Welcome, travellers), which supports exiles detained in guarded centres. "We have no news, we don't know what has become of them since their arrival in Kabul," adds the activist. "My father was killed, after being tortured, by the Taliban because he worked for the Afghan police," Javed testifies. He himself was arrested and imprisoned twice, the first time for 19 days and the second for 5 days, and was beaten repeatedly by his Taliban captors. "After that, I understood that I had to flee Afghanistan," Javed says, his voice trembling. The situation Javed faces in Poland comes as the European Commission has announced its intention to invite Taliban officials to Brussels soon for discussions on returning migrants to Afghanistan. This decision stems from pressure from numerous European states, even though the European Union does not recognise the Taliban regime .
In October 2025, the interior ministers of 20 European countries co-signed a letter urging the Commission to take action to facilitate the return of undocumented Afghans. A pioneer in this area, Germany has already broken this taboo by carrying out, since 2024, the mass deportation of around one hundred Afghans , all of whom had been convicted by the courts, via charter flights facilitated by Qatar.
Austria has since followed suit , receiving a delegation of Taliban representatives in Vienna in September 2025. When contacted by The New Arab , the Polish authorities declined to answer our questions. "Afghanistan is obviously not a safe country!" exclaims Hosnia, some of whose family lives there.
The activist adds, "Over there, everything is controlled by the Taliban, and the economic situation is catastrophic. The refugees, who are currently detained in Poland and with whom I am in contact, have sold everything — their houses, their cars — to be able to flee and have a better life. And now Europe wants to send them back there? That's impossible!" Maël Galisson is the author of the acclaimed investigation ' Les tués de Calais,' originally published by Les Jours and adapted by Open Democracy under the title 'The Silent Serial Killer: 391 deaths in 25 years at the UK border.' His reporting appears in French media such as Mediapart, L'Humanité, Reporterre, and StreetPress