Young Afghan refugee dies in Poland after eating poisonous mushrooms

When the brothers arrived from Afghanistan on August 23, they were transferred to a reception center in the Polish capital, Warsaw. UK broadcaster BBC reports they have the mushrooms ate a day later.

Toxic soup

A 17-year-old Afghan girl also had to be treated in hospital after eating mushrooms at the same shelter, but she has since recovered. According to Polish media, an Afghan family picked the mushrooms in a nearby forest and then turned them into soup.

Some media reported that the refugees had gone mushroom hunting because they were not fed enough at the shelter. A spokesperson for the Polish Immigration Service says this is not true and residents are given three meals a day.

Residents warned

According to the spokesperson, workers at asylum seekers’ centers are explicitly tasked with warning Afghan residents of the dangers of wild mushrooms. According to a Polish government statement, the country has at least 250 species of poisonous mushrooms, some of which can be deadly.

More than a thousand Afghans were transferred to Poland around the fall of the Afghan capital Kabul. Some of them had worked for the Polish army which was part of the NATO force in Afghanistan.