Hundreds of migrants return to Iraq from Belarus

Hundreds of Iraqis returned home on Thursday on a flight from Belarus, while Poland detained dozens of migrants who crossed its border, amid a crisis that Western countries blame on the Belarusian government.

European governments accuse the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, to attract thousands of migrants – many of them Iraqi Kurds – to the border in retaliation for the sanctions imposed against the former Soviet republic.

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Accusations that both Lukashenko and his ally Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected, while criticizing a the European Union for rejecting a the migrants, who are in a deplorable humanitarian situation, camped by thousands on the border between Belarus and Poland.

The NGOs say that at least 11 migrants Have they died from that the crisis began.

Polish rescuers said Thursday that they had assisted a Syrian couple who had been in the forest for a month and a half.

“His one-year-old son died in the forest”, assured the Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM) on Twitter.

The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, called for this “inhumanity” to cease.

“It is heartbreaking to see a child die in the cold and a the gates of the European Union ”, indicated on Twitter.

This week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke twice by phone with Lukashenko, in which it was the Belarusian leader’s first telephone contact with a Western leader. from last year’s elections, peppered with accusations of fraud and which led to a a major protest movement harshly repressed.

One day after the second call between the two leaders was made, the first repatriation flight landed in Iraqreported a spokesman for the government of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, where a good number of the migrants repatriated Iraqis.

There were 431 people on the flight, according to the Russian agency Interfax and the Kurdish government spokesman.

“Disinformation”

For her part, the spokeswoman for Belarusian President Natalia Eismont indicated this Thursday that there are currently about 7,000 migrants in the country.

According to her, her country will manage the repatriation of 5,000 migrants, and Chancellor Angela Merkel will negotiate with the European Union (EU) a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the remaining 2,000 to Germany.

But the German government denied having reached any agreement with Lukashenko on the possibility of opening such a corridor.

From Warsaw, the German Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, said that this statement was nothing more than “disinformation” and stressed that Germany “supports” Poland in the crisis.

His Polish counterpart, Mariusz Kaminski, noted that Warsaw had warned a Belarus that if the crisis “has not stabilized on Sunday”, Poland would interrupt rail traffic with Belarus.

200 migrants detained

On a night-time border incident, the Polish Defense Ministry explained on Twitter that Belarusian forces had brought a First a reconnaissance of the place was carried out and that “very probably” they caused damage to the fence that marks the border.

“Then, the Belarusians forced the migrants to throw stones at the Polish soldiers to divert their attention, while a few hundred meters away, the attempted crossing took place,” he explained.

“Belarusian forces led the attack,” the ministry added.

According to the border guard, about 500 migrants they tried to enter Polish territory, and 200 of them were arrested.

The source said that a family of five, including three children between the ages of seven and nine, were injured and taken to hospital.

“Solidarity”

A video released by the ministry shows Polish soldiers surrounding a group of people in a wooded area in the middle of the night near the fence.

The incident could not be independently verified because journalists are banned from the border area in Poland.

Faced with the escalation, the G7 members asked this Thursday “the regime [de Bielorrusia] to put an immediate end to its aggressive campaign (…) to avoid further deaths and more suffering ”.

The joint communiqué of the Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom (which currently holds the presidency of the G7), France, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union also expressed their “solidarity” with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. , victims according to them of a “provocative use of illegal immigration”.

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace will visit a military base in northeastern Poland that houses a NATO battle group.

A squad of British military engineers is expected to arrive in Poland later this month to help put up fences on the border, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said.

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Deshawn