Iraqi Asylum Seekers Go on Hunger Strike in Poland

According to Al-Arabiya news, ten Kurdish asylum seekers in Poland began their third week of hunger strike on Friday to protest their prison conditions and the delayed processing of their immigration petitions.

"On May 4, the strike began. Six Iraqis and four Turks applied for asylum and are being held in an immigration holding centre in Lesznowola, near Warsaw, according to Polish Border Guard spokesman Dagmara Bielec-Janas.

In a statement to AFP, the hunger strikers' spokesperson revealed that nine of the asylum seekers crossed the border from Belarus and spent months confined in the immigration holding centre.

The representative, who asked to remain unnamed, added that the hunger strikers had lost a significant amount of weight and that some of them had begun to refuse beverages as well.

Since last year, Belarus has welcomed thousands of refugees and immigrants into the European Union, the majority of them are from Middle Eastern countries.

Poland accused Belarus of orchestrating the influx of immigrants and responded by erecting a barbed wire fence along its borders and detaining refugees.

Human rights activists slammed Poland's tough stance on the problem of these immigrants, while welcoming Ukrainian war refugees with open arms.