SULAIMANI (ESTA) — German police said on Friday they had found a dead Iraqi man among around 30 people apparently smuggled across the Polish border in a van.
The 32-year-old had been dead for “several hours” when police found the group near the van outside the town of Schoepstal in Saxony on Friday morning, AFP cited German police as saying.
The driver, a 48-year-old man of Turkish origin, reportedly fled the scene but was later detained, AFP reported.
Germany has seen a surge in illegal migrants entering the country from Poland in recent months, most coming via Belarus.
Earlier on Friday, German foreign ministry said talks with Iraq to stop migrants’ flights to Belarus were successful, according to Reuters.
it added that Jordan has also cancelled several charter flights.
Iraq suspended direct flights from Baghdad to Minsk in August under EU pressure.
Migrants are now flying via Dubai or Turkey, AFP cited smugglers, residents, travel agencies and the honorary Belarusian consul in Erbil as saying.
The trips can cost up to $12,000 including flights and being smuggled overland once in Europe.
German authorities have registered 4,889 unauthorized arrivals with a connection to Belarus so far in October, which is more than a half of all such arrivals this year, according to Reuters.
The EU accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of flying migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Minsk and then sending them into the bloc on foot in retaliation for sanctions imposed over a crackdown on the opposition.
More than 6,100 illegal migrants have entered Germany via Poland since the start of the year, according to German authorities.
To cope with the influx, Berlin this week tightened its border controls with Poland, with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer deploying 800 extra police officers.
On Wednesday, Seehofer said more than 1,000 migrants had entered in a single day this week for the first time in many years, according to AFP.
“If you extrapolate that to a month, then you can see that there is an urgent need for action,” he told Bild TV.
Last Saturday, a suspected smuggler was taken into custody after 31 illegal migrants from Iraq were found in a van near the Polish border.
The influx has provided fuel for Germany’s extreme right, with police last week breaking up a rally of around 50 armed activists who had gathered to oppose migrants trying to cross the border.
The German government on Friday said “responsibility for resolving this crisis clearly lies with Minsk”, repeating Berlin’s position that Belarus is exploiting refugees “as a means of exerting political pressure”.
