Hundreds of Iraqi migrants left Belarus on Thursday (November 18) by plane after giving up all hope of reaching Europe via neighboring Poland, which barricaded its border and arrested a hundred candidates for exile.
An aircraft of the Iraqi Airways company, which took off from Minsk in the afternoon with 431 people on board, landed around 5 p.m. French in Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, authorities said.
Read alsoMigrants in Belarus: "Lukashenko's objective is to destabilize the EU"
Many children and women were on board this repatriation flight, the first since the start of the migration crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland and which was organized, according to Baghdad, "
on a voluntary basis
".
Thousands of migrants, mainly from the Near East, have been stranded for several days in a cold and humid forest on the border, hoping to reach the rich countries of Western Europe.
Migrants, repatriated to Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
AZAD LASHKARI / REUTERS
A sign of the human tragedies unfolding in this forest, the Polish International Aid Center, an NGO, said Thursday it had intervened there with a Syrian couple who said they had lost their one-year-old son.
Claiming to follow this "
tragic news
", European Parliament President David Sassoli said it was "
heartbreaking to see a child die in the cold at the gates of Europe
".
Arrests at the border
Belarus, which is accused of orchestrating this influx by issuing visas in revenge for Western sanctions, said Thursday that 7,000 migrants were in its territory, saying it was ready to "
repatriate
" 5,000 of them.
Minsk also assured that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met Wednesday with authoritarian Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, would negotiate with the EU a "
humanitarian corridor
" to evacuate the remaining 2,000 migrants to Germany.
“
Germany has not given its consent to this,
” a government source in Berlin told AFP.
Read alsoMigration crisis in Belarus: Poles to the rescue of migrants
On Thursday, the great powers of the G7 "
condemned the orchestration by the Belarusian regime
" of this migratory crisis, calling on Minsk to put an end to it "
immediately
" and to authorize access to humanitarian aid.
Meanwhile, on the ground, attempts to cross the border continued.
Migrants at the Polish border, protected by security forces.
LEONID SHCHEGLOV / AFP
Warsaw, which has erected a barbed wire fence and deployed more than 15,000 soldiers on its border, announced Thursday that it had arrested around 100 people who had tried to enter its territory illegally the previous night.
The Polish Defense Ministry accused
Belarusian "
special forces
" of "
forcing migrants to throw stones at Polish soldiers in order to distract their attention
."
Read alsoAt the borders of Europe, the plight of migrants in the clutches of Minsk
Video released by the Defense Ministry shows Polish soldiers surrounding a large group of migrants crouching on the ground at night in a forest, near a barbed wire fence.
The incident could not be independently verified, as journalists are banned from the immediate border area on the Polish side.
In another incident, video footage released by Belarusian border guards showed a Lithuanian border guard dog biting a man lying on the ground in a sleeping bag.
Lukashenko "
legitimized
"?
Since the start of the crisis in summer, at least 11 migrants have died on both sides of the border, according to humanitarian organizations.
If Brussels strongly criticized the Lukashenko regime, several European officials nevertheless resumed speaking with him, causing concern in Warsaw.
Read alsoBelorussia: how Lukashenko uses migrants as a means of pressure against Europe
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday denounced any attempt at official talks with the regime of Alexander Loukachenko, believing that this would amount to "
legitimizing
" it.
Angela Merkel had two telephone conversations this week with Alexander Lukashenko, whose re-election last year was not recognized by Westerners, who denounced massive fraud.
A deserted migrant camp on the Polish border.
LEONID SHCHEGLOV / AFP
Minsk said on Wednesday that talks between Angela Merkel and Alexander Lukashenko had resulted in an agreement on the organization of Belarus-EU talks.
But the announcement was immediately qualified by Berlin and the European Commission, which spoke of cooperation between Minsk and the EU to provide humanitarian aid to migrants stranded at the border in freezing temperatures.
Vladimir Putin's Russia, which supports Alexander Lukashenko, welcomed the direct dialogue between the EU and Belarus.
