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Lithuania has recently faced an increase in illegal immigration from Belarus. As a result, a state of emergency has been declared in the country, as well as the decision to turn on arrivals.
This year, more than 4,000 people entered Lithuania through the Belarusian border. migrants. Lithuanian officials call their growing flows a hybrid aggression from the Minsk regime.
Baghdad announced last week that it would suspend flights to Belarus to reduce the flow of emigrants and “protect Iraqi citizens who have been victims of human trafficking networks.”
Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf said 240 Iraqis had been repatriated from Minsk on a special flight to Baghdad on Tuesday night, and 130 of the country’s citizens had been repatriated the day before.
Al-Sahaf told AFP that additional flights would be organized to return more Iraqis trapped on the Lithuanian border, although the number is still unknown “because the border is so long.”
The European Union announced on Tuesday a “significant drop” in the number of immigrants crossing the Community’s borders with Belarus, as Iraq suspended regular flights from Baghdad to Minsk.
Lithuania accuses the Belarusian authorities of deliberately sending migrants across its border in retaliation for EU sanctions against the authoritarian regime of President Aliaksandr Lukashenko.
The sanctions were imposed by the Minsk regime’s brutal crackdown on the opposition, protesters and independent media following last year’s disputed presidential elections, which were declared won by Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994 with an iron fist. The opposition and western countries consider that these elections are rigged.
In recent days, the Lithuanian Parliament passed a law that gave the green light to the construction of a fence on the border with Belarus.
Vilnius strongly supports the Belarusian opposition and has given asylum to some of its members, including former presidential candidate Sviatlan Cichanouskaya.
European Union ministers plan to hold a meeting next week on the influx of immigrants from Belarus.
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