About 4,000 Iraqis stranded on Belarus’s border have been rescued
Baghdad … News Time
In recent weeks, Iraq has repatriated nearly 4,000 of its citizens stranded on Belarus’s borders with EU member states Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told a news conference in Baghdad with his Lithuanian counterpart on Sunday that the Iraqi government had arranged for 10 repatriation flights between Baghdad and Belarus since November 18. ۔ “We have managed to bring back about 4,000 Iraqis stranded on Belarus’s borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia,” he said. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf later told AFP that 3,817 Iraqi refugees had been repatriated from Belarus and 112 from Lithuania. They were flown to Iraq’s autonomous region of Kurdistan on earlier flights, as most of them were from Kurdistan. From there, Iraqis from other parts of the country have been transferred to Baghdad. Ahmed al-Sahaf said some Iraqis were still stranded in Belarus, but it was difficult to quantify their numbers due to bad weather and complex conditions.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis also met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi in Baghdad, saying he wanted to work with Iraq on new ideas. Since last summer, thousands of migrants, especially from the Middle East and Iraq, have been camping on the Belarusian-EU border. They were trying to enter the EU member states in the most unfavorable and difficult conditions. The West has accused Belarus of pushing migrants to the border in retaliation for sanctions against the government of President Alexander Lukashenko. Belarus has denied the allegations in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning Belarus have been made more than once.
