Usnarz Górny is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in the administrative district of

Gmina Szudziałowo __NOTOC__ Gmina Szudziałowo is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Sokółka County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, on the border with Belarus. Its seat is the village of Szudziałowo, which lies approximately south-east o ...

, within Sokółka County,

Podlaskie Voivodeship Podlaskie Voivodeship or Podlasie Province ( pl, Województwo podlaskie, ) is a voivodeship (province) in northeastern Poland. The name of the province and its territory correspond to the historic region of Podlachia. The capital and largest cit ...

, in north-eastern Poland. It is situated close to the border with

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

. It lies approximately north-east of

Szudziałowo Szudziałowo is a village in Sokółka County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, close to the border with Belarus. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Szudziałowo. It lies approximately south-east o ...

, south-east of Sokółka and north-east of the regional capital

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Białystok is located in the Białystok Up ...

. The word ' górny' in its name means 'upper', and the village just east of Usnarz Górny, on the Belarusian side of the border, is known in Polish as Usnarz Dolny (' lower Usnarz').

History

Near the end of the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...

, Usnarz Górny was owned by Kazimierz and Zuzanna Wiszczyński. From 1975 to 1998, it was part of Białystok Voivodeship. In 2011, the village was inhabited by 75 people; most of its inhabitants are elderly. Many of its mostly wooden houses are now unoccupied, and although an asphalt road leads to the village, the roads within the village are unpaved. In August 2021, the village was talked about in the media when a group of 32 immigrants from

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

and

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

camped for a long time near it on the Belarusian side of the border (in the khutor of Dolny Usnar), not allowed to enter Poland by the Polish border guards and military and prevented from returning to Belarus by Belarusian soldiers. They had been led to the border by the Belarusian government as part of the operation codenamed "Sluice". On October 24 of the same year, the

Polish border guard The Polish Border Guard ( pl, Straż Graniczna, also abbreviated as SG) is a state security agency tasked with patrolling the Polish border. It existed in the Second Republic era from 1928 to 1939 and was reestablished in the modern-day Thi ...

reported that a group of about 60 migrants, including some of those trapped on the border since August, tried unsuccessfully to forcibly cross the border into Poland near Usnarz Górny, with the assistance of Belarusian soldiers, who tried to cut through the recently erected border fence; some of the migrants threw stones at the Polish soldiers guarding the border, two of whom were lightly injured.

References

Villages in Sokółka County {{Sokółka-geo-stub