Iraqi Airways has managed to evacuate a group of migrants from Belarus. The Belarusian side had previously claimed that the flight could not arrive because “the Europeans do not pay,” but the Europeans did not have to pay.
According to Iraqi Airways, the Iraqi Ministry of Transport counted 608 citizens who returned from under the Belarusian-Polish border on the night of November 25-26. On November 18, another 430 people were evacuated. A total of 1,038 Iraqi citizens were evacuated. One plane flew from Minsk to Baghdad, another — from Minsk to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Kurdistan24 TV channel was broadcasting the migrants’ return live. One of the migrants, upon his return, compared his experience in Belarus to that of Islamic State terrorists.
On the afternoon of November 25, it looked like the flights were canceled. Alyaksandr Lukashenka said it was allegedly because “the Europeans didn’t pay” Iraq. The EU denied this, saying the EU did not finance these flights.
Thousands of migrants remain in Belarus. According to the European officials, about 15 thousand migrants from the Middle East and North Africa were in Belarus at the beginning of the week.
The Iraqi consul in Belarus told the Russian press that another flight paid for by the International Organization for Migration would take place in a week. Several thousand more people will return home.
