Returning Iraqi migrants tell of hunger and beatings in Belarus
AFTER a miserable fortnight enduring Polish water cannon, Belarusian batons and freezing conditions, hundreds of Iraqi migrants returned home this week with a bitter sense of betrayal.
But dire images from the Poland-belarus border have not deterred everyone.
At Erbil airport, in northern Iraq, one 28-year-old teacher preparing to fly to Belarus dismissed the reports of hardship at the border as fake news.
“I believe the media is exaggerating about the border situation,” said the man, who was previously deported from Turkey while attempting to reach Europe and who asked not to be named.
“We are chasing a dream of living elsewhere and this dream will not come true without feeling cold, feeling uncomfortable and fighting for it for a while,” added the youth, from the Kurdish region of Sulaymaniyah.
Asked why he wanted to leave, and run the risk of death or injury at the Poland-belarus border, he cited persecution of Iraq’s Kurdish minorities.
He went on to speak of “fairy tale” accounts of success from Iraqis who had won asylum in the European Union, which he said had spurred him on.
“It has been for years that we hear of people who made it successfully through different routes and lived happily ever after,” he said.
As he made his way towards Belarus, hundreds of his countrymen were coming back the other way.
Many spoke of their bitter regret at being tricked into flying to Minsk by Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president who has sought to weaponise migrants against the EU.
“We were hostages – victims stuck between Belarus and the European Union,” one returning Iraqi said.
He compared the Belarusian border guards to Islamic State, alluding to reports of soldiers beating migrants and even forcing them to rush the border, with potentially deadly consequences.
Ali Kadhim, on his way back to Basra, said that there was barely any food in Belarus. He had to live on as little as three dates per day, he added.
As the crisis enters its third week, the situation has calmed down to an extent after Belarus moved many migrants to shelters away from the border.
But there were reports on Friday of at least one person contracting Covid in one of the shelters, raising the possibility of a major outbreak since few migrants have been fully vaccinated.