Unlawful Return from Hospital
The Case of a Somali Child Forcibly Removed from Polish Territory under the 2025 Law.
On 27 March 2025, our client, a 17 year old Somali national, was in the hospital in the town of Hajnówka. He requested to apply for asylum but, under the provisions of the new law, this request was rejected. He was removed from the hospital and forcibly returned to Belarus.
The notable elements of this case are:
The individual arrived in hospital and was referred to ELIL by an NGO there. We took the power of attorney and informed the border guards we were representing him.
After being in the hospital for five hours, the border guards returned. The doctors and NGO workers thought that the border guards were transporting him to a different hospital for an X-ray, but instead they drove him back to Belarus. This was done without informing us, his legal representatives.
We were informed by the border guards subsequently that he had been immediately issued with a decision requiring him to leave the territory of Poland.
This process raises numerous serious concerns:
According to the law, this decision should have been taken at the border, not after he had already entered Poland and been hospitalised.
He was returned back to Belarus without being allowed to apply for asylum. We have not received any official document confirming a refusal of his asylum application or justification as to why he was not allowed to apply for asylum. We are still awaiting further details and have lodged a case at the relevant Administrative Court to request this documentation.
He was already in the hospital of Hajnówka – outside the buffer zone and more than 25 kilometers from the border – when he requested to apply for asylum. This raises serious concerns, as it indicates the law is being applied not just at the border but also in locations far from the border (even, in this case, a hospital).
The law states that exceptions will be made for vulnerable individuals, including those in poor health. Our client was in hospital in a critical condition, with severe dehydration and unable to eat properly (having not eaten or drunk anything but muddy water for many days). He was found by the border guards in the forest in a very weak state, vomiting and lying motionless.
He claimed to be an unaccompanied child and there is uncertainty about his age (with the birthdate on his passport differing from the birthdate he told the border guards). However, the border guards refused to investigate or verify this and refused to share any information with our lawyer (despite our stated intention to provide legal representation).
We believe that this constitutes a major overreach of the powers under the new law. Even under the new law, he should have been allowed to apply for asylum. The authorities disregarded his vulnerable condition, failed to assess whether he was a child and removed him despite the fact that he was already in a hospital outside the buffer zone, more than 25 kilometers inside Poland when he declared his intention to seek asylum (and not at the border as required by the new law).
This case suggests that the new law is being used to justify blanket denial of the right to apply for asylum at the border, even to those in desperate situations.
