Metal rods rise above the people to support
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2025 8:20 am
The trip could have killed them. But people fleeing economic wreckage in the Middle East say they would do it 100 times more
By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN
Four-year-old Azhi is limping in a makeshift center for migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border. Grabbing his mother’s hand for support, he carefully slid his legs under piles of donated blankets.
a giant zinc roof. Azhi, who has leg braces, smiles and eyes wide. It’s hard to say that a few days ago the boy’s family faced the specter of death.
“We want to go to Germany so that Azhi can have the operation,” said her phone number library mother, Shoxan Hussein, 28. “The doctors said he had to do it before he was five.”
Azhi’s family were among hundreds of migrants who have tried to enter Poland from Belarus in recent weeks in the hope of seeking asylum in the European Union. After days spent in the frozen Belarusian forest where migrants say they were beaten and deprived of food by Belarusian forces, the family never made it across the border. Several people died on the trip while thousands were stranded in inhumane conditions. Azhi and her parents survived unharmed.
By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN
Four-year-old Azhi is limping in a makeshift center for migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border. Grabbing his mother’s hand for support, he carefully slid his legs under piles of donated blankets.
a giant zinc roof. Azhi, who has leg braces, smiles and eyes wide. It’s hard to say that a few days ago the boy’s family faced the specter of death.
“We want to go to Germany so that Azhi can have the operation,” said her phone number library mother, Shoxan Hussein, 28. “The doctors said he had to do it before he was five.”
Azhi’s family were among hundreds of migrants who have tried to enter Poland from Belarus in recent weeks in the hope of seeking asylum in the European Union. After days spent in the frozen Belarusian forest where migrants say they were beaten and deprived of food by Belarusian forces, the family never made it across the border. Several people died on the trip while thousands were stranded in inhumane conditions. Azhi and her parents survived unharmed.