The Iraqi government stated that it will organize a “voluntary” repatriation flight for citizens stranded on the border between Poland and Belarus on Thursday (November 18).
The spokesperson of the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Sahaf told Iraqi TV stations overnight from Sunday to Monday, “Iraq will conduct the first flight on November 18 for those who wish to return voluntarily from Belarus on November 18″ .
He did not say how many people were able to board the Minsk-Baghdad flight, but said that Iraq recorded 571 citizens trapped at the border, and they said they were prepared to return “voluntarily”.
Thousands of immigrants from the Middle East, including many from the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, set up camps at the border between the EU and Belarus, which caused a confrontation between the EU and the United States on the one hand, and a confrontation between Belarus and its ally Russia on the other hand. .
Western countries accuse the government of President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus of designing the crisis by encouraging immigrants to come to Belarus and then bring them to the border.
Since August, regular air links between Baghdad and Minsk have been suspended, while Belarusian diplomatic missions in Baghdad and Albil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, have been closed for more than a week.
Sahaf said these measures “reduce the travel of Iraqis (to Belarus), but the problem is that some people now take indirect flights via Turkey, Qatar, the UAE and Egypt.”
On Friday, Turkey banned citizens of Syria, Iraq and Yemen from flying to Belarus from its airports, while the Syrian private airline Cham Wings Airlines stopped flights to Minsk on Saturday.
The Kurdistan region of Iraq claims to be a relatively stable haven, but it is often criticized for restricting freedom of speech. The region has been ruled by two parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, for decades.
Several Iraqi Kurds told Agence France-Presse that they wanted to leave behind the lack of economic prospects and security instability.
European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas will travel to Baghdad on Monday to discuss the immigration crisis.
