Białystok opens Belarusian refugee centre
An aid centre for Belarusian refugees from Alexander Lukashenko’s regime and Belarusians of Polish descent was opened on Monday in Białystok, north-eastern Poland.
The government co-financed centre will offer aid in resettlement formalities, finding work and accommodation, as well as Polish language courses and financial aid.
Waves of Belarusian refugees have been arriving in Poland in the wake of a rigged 2020 presidential election, which gave Lukashenko a 6th term.
The election, actually won by currently exiled Belarusian oppositionist Svyatlana Tschikhanouskaya, evoked countrywide mass protests, to which the authorities replied with brutal police repressions and mass-scale arrests.
Repressions have also been directed against Belarus' Polish minority, several of whose leaders have been arrested on subversion charges. Among the detainees is Andżelika Borys, head of the Union of Poles in Belarus (ZPB), a major Polish minority organisation which is unrecognised by the Lukashenko regime.
