He fell asleep on a mattress in a warehouse in Belarus. As the year approaches, hundreds of Middle Eastern immigrants still have hope for the future of Western Europe.
The nearly 600 migrants from countries including Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria are among the thousands who flew to Belarus this year and tried to cross the forest border into Poland.
The EU stated that Belarus encouraged them to come and then pushed them to the border in an attempt to destabilize its eastern border. Belarus denied that it had planned the crisis. Its senior leader Alexander Lukashenko stated that it is up to the immigrants to decide whether to go west or return to their homeland.
The staff and volunteers of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are working hard to register those who are willing to return home. But some people are unwilling to do this. They spent thousands of dollars to get to this point.
A Syrian immigrant who called himself Jndali in Yemen told Reuters: “My plan is to stay because I can’t go to the forest or return to Syria. Syria is nothing. I have nothing. I don’t have a house, a school, a job-I have nothing. no.”
Hundreds of people are sleeping, lining up to buy food, wandering aimlessly in huge warehouses, or playing half-hearted football games, including many children.
Mohamed Refaad, senior operations coordinator of the International Organization for Migration, said that the government, local authorities and the Belarusian Red Cross are all working hard to support migrants, but still need more help to provide children with food, shelter and education.
“We are working hard to increase our efforts to meet all these needs,” he said.
Belarusian assistant to the president, Yuri Karay, stated that those who refuse to provide flights to return home are still determined to go to Europe. If someone wants to stay in Belarus, “they must understand that there is no unemployment benefit, so people must work to earn a living,” he said.
Jndali, an immigrant from Syria, said that he is still optimistic because he does not believe that children as young as one year old will be left where they are.
When asked about his opportunity to go to Europe, he said: “I think there is hope.”
