Migrant woman from Guinea deported from Belarus, her daughter taken to an orphanage in Minsk

Mariam Soumah outside her home. Conakry, December 29, 2025. Photo: AFP

Several months ago, Belarusian authorities deported the young migrant mother to her homeland in West Africa without her child, according to Mariam herself and human rights groups involved in her case.

Following these reports, the situation has been condemned by UN experts, human rights groups, and Guinean diplomats.

"I asked them not to do it," Soumah told AFP in an interview in the slums of Guinea's capital, Conakry, while scrolling through recent photos of Sabina, who turned one in November, on her phone.

In an attempt to escape poverty, Soumah traveled across Africa to reach Belarus, hoping to get into the EU from there. This migration route has become popular in recent years, with the EU accusing Alexander Lukashenka's regime of encouraging migrants to try to enter the EU via Belarus.

Like many others, Soumah entered authoritarian Belarus on a student visa obtained online.

"I didn't want to go (to Europe) by sea. I looked at the map and saw that Belarus was surrounded by Schengen countries."

Daughter weighed 600 grams at birth

Mariam's ordeal began in Belarus when she tried to extend her visa. Pregnant by a Guinean man who had left to try to get into the EU, Soumah gave birth more than two months before her due date.

When Sabina was born in November 2024, she weighed only 600 grams.

She was urgently admitted to intensive care, where Belarusian doctors managed to save her. But soon after, according to Soumah, she was forbidden from seeing her child until she paid large medical bills.

Later, she was jailed for violating migration rules and forced onto a plane without her daughter.

"I said I would only return with my child. I asked them: please, just let my child recover, and I will go home with him," Soumah told AFP.

After her deportation in August, Soumah said she was allowed two brief video calls to see Sabina, who is in a Minsk orphanage.

What diplomats and human rights activists say

UN experts called reports of forced separation "extremely disturbing." The Guinean embassy in Moscow, which is also responsible for contacts with Belarus, told AFP it is following the case with "great humanitarian concern" and demands "explanations."

The embassy stated that UNICEF in Belarus, which told AFP it could not comment on individual cases, is aware of the situation and may help arrange "humanitarian support" for the child.

Belarusian authorities did not respond to AFP's request for comment.

Walked around Minsk for 10 days looking for her daughter

Attempts to restrict Mariam's access to Sabina began when she was recovering from an emergency Cesarean section.

"Already in the hospital, I asked: 'How is my child?', and they told me she was sick and tired," Soumah recalls.

She only knew that Sabina had been transferred to another hospital. For ten days, she walked around Minsk, "searching from morning till night," before finding the hospital where her daughter was and began visiting her daily.

After Sabina was discharged from intensive care and transferred to another hospital, Soumah was presented with a medical bill for about $33,000.

Seeing the bill, "I threw up my hands," she said. Then she was forbidden from meeting Sabina until she paid.

According to Soumah, last summer a woman in the hospital told her that Sabina was being sent to an orphanage. At the same time, pressure from immigration services intensified. In July, she was jailed for violating immigration rules.

The exile rights group Human Constanta, which monitors migrant rights in Belarus, criticized the authorities' harsh response, calling the offense administrative, not criminal.

"They simply didn't care, and they separated mother and child," said Enira Bronitskaya of Human Constanta, calling the process "manipulative."

"Threatening a mother that her child won't be returned to her is, of course, illegal," Bronitskaya said, as there was no official decision to deprive Mariam of her parental rights.

In prison, Soumah said, immigration officials tried to find a relative who could pay for her ticket home.

No one could, and "in any case, I wouldn't have gone without my child," Mariam said.

Finally, one day, she said, she was handcuffed, taken to the airport, put on a flight to Istanbul, and told not to return.

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