Belarus clears migrant camp, pushes people across Polish border

Vulnerable Migrants

According to Pietrzak, many vulnerable people have been affected in recent days – migrant families with children or people with disabilities – who did not actually dare to cross the Polish border, but were forced to do so anyway. “They are in terrible condition, they are severely traumatized,” he says.

An Iraqi Kurdish migrant who tried to cross the road with his wife and child in recent days says they have been pushed back. “We are now back on the Belarusian side of the border,” he says in a voice message owned by the NOS. “We have two babies in the group who are sick, and we can’t stay here any longer.”

Belarus says the migrants themselves have decided to leave “the center”. They would be received in other locations or returned to the Middle East. A group of about a hundred people would also have flown back to Iraq.

Belarus started collecting migrants from the Middle East last summer. They were then forced across the border of Poland, among others. The EU called this a form of hybrid warfare by President Lukashenko’s regime to put pressure on the European Union in response to European sanctions against the regime in Minsk.

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