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Migrants wait for a flight to Iraq at the airport in Minsk
Photo: Sergei Bobylev / imago images / ITAR-TASS
Iraq wants to fly out more migrants stuck in the Belarusian-Polish border area.
Two special flights took off from Baghdad to Minsk on Thursday evening to bring 617 Iraqi citizens back to Iraq, said a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, according to the state news agency Ina.
A week ago, more than 430 mostly Iraqi Kurds were brought back to Iraq in a plane operated by the state airline Iraki Airways.
Thousands of refugees from the Middle East have been stuck on the EU's external border with Belarus, especially on the border with Poland, for weeks.
The EU accuses Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately smuggling people to the border in order to seek revenge for EU sanctions.
The Belarusian leadership rejects the allegations.
kfr / AFP
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