A flight carrying around 430 Iraqi immigrants who were in the Belarus-Polish border left for Baghdad, capital of Iraq, this Thursday (18th). The aircraft took off from the airport in Minsk, capital of Belarus.
A spokesman for Iraq’s Foreign Ministry, Ahmed Al-Salaf, had already confirmed on Sunday (14) that a repatriation operation would begin this week for those on the border and “willing to voluntarily” return.
The Belarusian government dismantled camps in the Bruzgi-Kuźnica border region and moved the migrants to nearby sheds. It is not yet known what the future of these people will be.
Despite the new measure, many immigrants are still trying to cross the border between the two countries, in addition to those with Lithuania and Latvia. This is because Poland and the other two countries are part of the European Union, the final destination desired by a large portion of travelers.
According to surveys by the governments of Poland and Belarus, the number of immigrants at the border is uncertain, but it reaches more than 4,000, most coming from the Middle East, especially from the Kurdish population of Iraq.
Belarus announced, also on Thursday, that it has proposed a plan to the European Union (EU) to mitigate the crisis. In the new proposal, the country suggests that the EU take in 2,000 immigrants, and the local government would be responsible for repatriating another 3,000. The European Commission and Germany, however, rejected the proposal.
Belarus’ state-owned airline Belavia is preventing passengers from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Yemen from boarding flights from Turkey to the capital Minsk, according to a statement posted on the airline’s website. Belta news agency said the restriction extends to flights from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.
humanitarian crisis
In addition to the complicated diplomatic situation, the humanitarian conditions in which migrants stranded on the Belarusian and Polish border find themselves are also critical.
In some cases, these people have been trapped in forested regions, where low temperatures and hunger take their toll. So far, at least eleven immigrant deaths have been registered at the crossing points.
There are reports of violent repression by the two countries – both have a military presence in the region –, including the aggression of people who tried to cross the border.
Tensions between the European Union and Belarus
The immigration crisis on the border between Belarus and the European Union has raised diplomatic accusations. The European bloc accuses the former Soviet country and Russia’s ally of provoking the humanitarian crisis at the border, in response to sanctions applied by the EU between 2020 and 2021.
The European Union claims that the government of Alexandr Lukashenko would have allowed a greater entry of immigrants from the Middle East into his country to put pressure on the bloc’s borders and provoke the crisis.
“What we see in Minsk, this inhuman system of using refugees as tools to exert pressure on the European Union, has not improved, but it has gotten worse in recent days,” German EU Minister Haiko Maas said on Monday. .
“We are going to tighten sanctions for individuals who are involved in this human trafficking and we will have to talk about the fact that severe economic sanctions are unavoidable. We will have to face the airlines too.”
The strategy would be a reaction to the sanctions that the European Union has been applying to the country, especially after the re-election of Lukashenko, who received the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator”. In the second half of last year, he won an election after spending 26 years in power and sparked a series of massive protests in the country.
The European bloc condemned the electoral process, stating that the election would have been “neither free nor fair”, and the violence with which the repression of popular demonstrations, which would have violated human rights, was carried out. Europe, at the time, did not recognize what it called a “false result”.
Tensions escalated when, in May of this year, Belarus forced the landing of a Ryanair plane, traveling from Greece to Lithuania. On his way through Belarusian territory, a dissident government journalist was detained. At this time, some European countries banned the entry of Belavia flights in their airspaces.
*With information from Reuters and under supervision
Reference: CNN Brasil
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