train of destiny

Every morning at 6:22 AM, a train passes from Brest in Belarus to its Polish twin city Terespol. The third car is completely packed with passengers, mostly families fleeing from Chechnya. Their dream is to get asylum in the European Union, a dream that in most cases will not be fulfilled.

They are treated arbitrarily by Polish border guards. Among the many asylum seekers, only one family per day is chosen, and the rest has to go back to Belarus. Human rights organizations in Poland and Belarus are condemning the illegal pushbacks. Fatima A. and her five children not only face harsh treatment by European authorities, but also the Kadyrowzy, a paramilitary unit of the Chechen president, who follows refugees, threatens them, and some are even kidnapped in Brest, to get them back to Russia.

This series is part of a four-part multimedia series on EU's Eastern borderlands, published by Der Spiegel, produced in collaboration with Bartholomäus von Laffert and Moritz Richter.