● Physical attack in Czerwony Bór
On 3 April 2025, five African residents of the open refugee reception centre in Czerwony Bór were attacked as they walked to the nearest shop, several kilometres away through the forest. A car stopped and four masked men got out, armed with baseball bats and a metal rod. When the foreigners greeted them, one of the attackers swung the metal rod at the head of the first man; he shielded himself with his arm and was hit on the wrist and back, and was left with bruising. The five men ran away while the attackers chased them. The centre's administration did not report the assault to the police, and the residents were only advised to call 112 if it happened again. The account of the attack comes from the residents themselves, relayed by journalist Joanna Klimowicz and reported by OKO.press.
The assault came after weeks of anti-migrant agitation around the centre, where foreigners legally awaiting asylum decisions live — until recently mainly Chechens, Tajiks and Afghans, and more recently also people of African origin. A local PiS councillor wrote to the voivode that residents feared the migrants, right-wing television channels ran material claiming the foreigners were roaming nearby villages and pulling at door handles, and on 1 April PiS MP Janusz Kowalski and Robert Bąkiewicz, former head of the Independence March association, came to the centre and filmed a report outside it after being refused entry.
Three days after the attack, on the evening of 6 April 2025, a so-called "citizens' walk" was held outside the centre. Around 150 people from nearby villages gathered, among them several dozen men, some of them hooded, in tracksuits and heavily built; police put the number of men who assembled at about 50. Frightened residents inside sent out photographs and video of the crowd. Officers checked the identity of some participants, and the gathering dispersed at around 18:00. Hours earlier that day, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński had spoken about Czerwony Bór at a rally in Wysokie Mazowieckie, saying foreigners there were walking in large groups and pulling at door handles, and praising local council resolutions opposing the acceptance of such foreigners.