In the middle of no man’s land are several thousand migrants. It is almost exclusively Iraqi Kurds who have entered Belarus by plane on a tourist visa.
In place in Mins, the trip continues with buses to the border areas with Poland. Polish authorities claim the migrants are herded towards the border as a provocation, and that the migrants are thus a piece in a game between nations.
And while diplomatic relations are at a freezing point, there are up to 40,000 migrants in the icy forests. Whole families try to keep warm by the campfire through the nights. It has already cost lives, no one knows how many.
– On Monday, Gailan Diler was buried in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq. AFP) Photo: SAFIN HAMED
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On Saturday, it was reported that a young Syrian man was found dead on the Polish side of the border. The cause of death is not clear.
On Monday, a 25-year-old man was buried in the Kurdish hometown of Erbil. He died a couple of weeks ago when he was trying to get from Belarus to Poland.
Gailan Diler was 25 years old, and had embarked on the journey with two brothers, her sister, her husband and children. They hoped to get to Germany to have a better future. But it ended fatally.
“He had diabetes and a spinal cord disease,” his father, Ismael Diler, told AFP.
– Many have taken this route, and they say it is a safe route with a four-hour walk, he says.
– Ismael Mahmoud Diler shows a picture of his son Gailan who died on the way between Belarus and Poland a couple of weeks ago. On Monday he was buried. (Photo by SAFIN HAMED / AFP) Photo: SAFIN HAMED
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Today, Kilan’s sister is in hospital in Poland with a broken leg, while the rest of the family has retired to Kiev and is awaiting the situation. Iraqi authorities are now offering to retrieve all migrants by plane.
EU foreign ministers on Monday imposed new sanctions on Belarus, including the country’s state-owned airline Belavia. The sanctions package is the fifth EU to introduce since the controversial election in Belarus in August 2020.
The EU will henceforth be able to go after “individuals and entities that organize or contribute to the Lukashenko regime’s activities to facilitate the illegal crossing of the EU’s outer border,” it said in a statement.
This probably opens the door to sanctions against the state-owned Belarusian airline Belavia, which is said to have transported refugees and migrants from the Middle East to Minsk. From there, they are transported on to the borders with the EU countries Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.
– Barbed wire fence: Migrants are kept out of the EU and NATO with police forces and barbed wire fences. (Photo by BELTA / AFP) Photo: OKSANA MANCHUK
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Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko is reportedly doing so in response to sanctions the EU has previously imposed on his regime.
Ever since this summer, the forests in the border areas have been inhabited by migrants trying to enter the EU.
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