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Belarus returnees at Erbil airport
Photo: Ismael Adnan / dpa
After staying in Belarus for weeks on the border with Poland, hundreds of migrants have returned to their homeland, Iraq.
A Boeing B747-400 aircraft of the Iraqi airline Iraqi Airways destined for Erbil took off from Minsk Airport on Saturday.
Another plane to Erbil was announced for the evening, as the airport announced.
For weeks, thousands of migrants have been trying to get from Belarus across the EU's external borders to Poland or the Baltic states.
The EU accuses the authoritarian Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of targeting people from crisis regions to Minsk in order to smuggle them into the EU.
After more and more EU sanctions against Belarus came into force, Lukashenko had declared that he would no longer stop migrants on their way to the West.
According to the information provided by those concerned, the returns are voluntary because they no longer see any way of admission to the EU.
There have been several such flights recently.
In an emergency shelter in a logistics center in Brusgi on the Polish border, however, there are still many people who are mainly striving for Germany.
And the flow of migrants does not stop: on Friday alone, Poland registered more than 200 attempts to cross the border from Belarus.
However, this was thwarted, the authority announced on Twitter on Saturday.
Six foreigners from Georgia and Russia were arrested.
At one section near Bialowieza, the officers repulsed "an attack on the border" by a group of around 100 people.
Since Poland does not allow journalists or aid organizations into the border area, the information cannot be verified independently.
A spokesman for the interior minister and secret service coordinator Mariusz Kaminski justified this on the TV station Polsat by saying that the situation in the border region was restless and at times dangerous.
A new regulation for the presence of media representatives is being prepared.
cbu / dpa