SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraq has repatriated nearly 4,000 citizens stranded on the Belarus borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in recent weeks, the country’s foreign minister said on Sunday.
Following a meeting with his Lithuanian counterpart Gabrielius Landsbergis, Fuad Hussein said Baghdad had organized “10 flights from Baghdad to Belarus” to repatriate its citizens since November 18.
“We have been able to repatriate around 4,000 Iraqis who were stuck on the Belarus borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia,” he said in a press conference.
The flights have generally arrived in the Kurdistan Region, where many of the would-be migrants are from, before continuing to Baghdad.
AFP cited Iraq’s foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf as saying that 3,817 Iraqis had been repatriated from Belarus and 112 from Lithuania.
The Lithuanian foreign minister, for his part, said he wanted to “bring in new cooperation ideas” with Iraq, according to AFP.
Landsbergis also met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and handed an invitation letter to the Iraqi premier to visit Lithuania.
Iraqis and Kurds who fled seeking economic opportunity and in some cases political asylum began returning to their country in mid-November having failed to get into the EU via Belarus.
The West has accused Belarus of purposefully luring migrants — mostly from the Middle East — to the EU’s border as revenge for sanctions against President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
Belarus has denied the claim and criticized the EU for not taking in the migrants.
