The European Union said on Tuesday that after Iraq stopped flights to Minsk, immigration from Belarus into Lithuania had “significantly reduced”.
Baghdad suspended flights to Belarus on Friday after the European Union accused the country of encouraging unauthorized entry in retaliation for EU sanctions.
The European Union said that so far this year, 4,110 “irregular entrants” have entered Lithuania, a member state of the European Union — nearly 2,800 of them are from Iraq.
“On August 6, the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority suspended all flights from Iraq to Belarus. Since then, the number of irregular arrivals in Lithuania has decreased significantly,” an EU spokesperson told AFP.
She said that 271 people arrived in Lithuania from Belarus in the week of August 2, compared with 1,106 in the previous week.
She added that only four people crossed the border during the weekend.
Lithuania accused Belarusian strongman President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime of concentrating migrants to its borders in retaliation for EU sanctions, calling it a “mixed aggression”.
As Lukashenko suppressed opposition and protesters after the controversial vote, the European Union has imposed sanctions on Belarus.
Brussels has sent border guards and supplies to help Lithuania cope with the surge in the number of arrivals.
An EU spokesperson said that although the EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson supported border construction during his visit to Lithuania last week, it “does not provide funding for fences or barriers”.
The spokesperson said: “We may not be ready to fund something, and think it is a good idea under certain circumstances. There is no contradiction between the two.”
EU ministers will hold crisis negotiations on the influx of migrants next week.
