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After the borders came down

• Mark Mardell
• 11 Jan 08, 08:51 AM

Sait Vakmeta misses and watches a video about the motherland he has left.

It isn't exactly scenery or holiday snaps. But an explicit celebration of

Stirring music underlays graphic pictures of rocket launchers being fired and Russian military vehicles exploding, quickly intercut with pictures of men and children performing a dance both wild and stiffly formal, that I in my ignorance would have identified as Cossack dancing.

A tiny boy in a green shirt whirls around, his hand above his head before we are shown a shot of a tank blowing up, the soldiers' bodies thrown in the air. Chuckles of approval.

As a helicopter gunship is bathed in fire, he says: "They landed in a minefield. Their people could not save them."

His wife Kameta adds something to the effect that Chechnya will not be beaten. As he turns to talk to me his son takes over the computer and puts on a game that involves firing big weapons at vehicles.

Not usually one to be bothered by such games, it's a bit more disturbing in view of the real life carnage that preceded it.

We are on the outskirts of .

The couple and their six children, aged between six and 19, have applied for asylum in Poland and now live in a state-run centre for people waiting for their cases to be heard.

There's no doubt it's pretty crowded. Two rooms for eight people. In one we are in, a large triple bed takes up much of the space.

There's a one-ring cooker with a big pot on it, and a makeshift wardrobe by the door. A table and the windowsill serve as a larder for a loaf of bread and some cheese and butter.

They share a big bathroom with the rest of the people on their floor. "It's hard," they say but better than their life in Chechnya where they say there is no medicine, no chance for their children and conditions are much worse than this tiny and rather run down flat.

They are among 245 people living here, almost all of them in families.

The numbers have increased recently. Last September there were 170; by November 209 and by December 241.

Veoletta Kedziercka, a jolly if cynical Polish woman who runs the centre is in no doubt.

"The number of people here has significantly increased," she says.

"We've seen this since the begining of the autumn. A large influx happened in December and most likely it's connected with Poland joining the Schengen zone."

She adds: "We rather think that they tie up their future with countries a little bit further west than Poland. They dream of going to England. . Mind you, my dream is to live in Norway. But I haven't gone."

Sait and Kameta say they like Poland, but feel they could do better. They think if they made it to England their sons could be trained as sportsmen.

They have lots of talent, they say. Some of their friends have already made it to France and Austria. But they say as a family of eight it is not so easy to travel.

"Sait says the risks are high, with all the kids. ," says Kameta.

All this is pretty much what I expected to hear, and indeed it's why I am here.

But I have a shock coming. I expected them to tell me how they got past the border guards into the country, and after entering illegally claimed asylum.

Not a bit of it. They took a train to the border and went up to the guards and claimed asylum.

"Poland welcome us," they say. They were then granted the right to live in Poland while their case is considered.

Last year more than 9,000 Chechens did exactly the same thing.

Although they make up the vast majority of people claiming asylum in Poland this way, the Polish Government is quite clear that just about anyone who turns up at the border and claims asylum has to, by international law, be let in.

Around fifty were refused entry last year.

And the same apparently applies to any of the countries along the European Union's long eastern border.

Until the end of last year this was nobody's business but Poland's. But now is complaining of an "avalanche" of Chechens coming into his country.

This isn't legal. Those claiming asylum in Poland aren't allowed to travel elsewhere. But it is happening.

The Polish police are just setting up mobile units to search trains and buses for people attempting to leave Poland into Germany or Slovakia, or indeed on one of the many coaches that leaves everyday for Britain.

But there are, I am told, 30 such units, and an awful lot of buses and trains. And indeed there is no barbed wire or fences along much of the now open border with other EU countries.

Officials rightly point out that once someone has claimed asylum in one EU country, they can't claim it in another.

And what they say is a new, efficient finger-printing system means that if they try, they will be deported back to the country where they first entered the European Union.

Of course that doesn't stop them disappearing into the black economy.

These are early days, less than a month since the borders came down. But it will be interesting to see how efficient and how effective that finger-printing system is.

Or whether, as several of you suggested after yesterday's piece, it matters a jot.

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