Go west, we won’t beat you, Belarus leader urges migrants
ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO urged migrants to “go westwards” yesterday and promised he wouldn’t “beat or choke” people who tried to cross the border into the European Union.
The Belarusian president made the comments during a meet-and-greet in his first public appearance at the border since he was accused of weaponising asylum seekers and waging “hybrid warfare” on the EU.
Although the crisis on Poland’s border has now died down, at least 2,000 migrants, mostly from Iraq and Syria, are still stranded at a warehouse in western Belarus close to the frontier which saw clashes earlier this month.
During his visit Mr Lukashenko shook hands with people, comforted an elderly woman and ruffled children’s hair before stepping on a podium made of pallets to address those stranded outside the city of Hrodna.
“If you want to go westwards, we won’t detain you, choke you, beat you,” he told the migrants, to rapturous applause. “It’s up to you. Go through. Go.”
When an Iraqi teenager told him she could not return home and hoped to continue on to Europe, he replied: “We won’t only hope. We will work together on your dream. We won’t in any circumstances detain you, tie your hands and load you on planes to send you home if you don’t want that.” He was referring to Eu-funded repatriation flights that have taken more than 1,000 people – mainly Iraqi Kurds – back to Erbil over the last week.
Migrants have been lured into Belarus on easily accessible tourist visas and crossing into the EU since this summer but the crisis escalated this month when the numbers grew.
Poland and other EU nations say the crisis is engineered and is part of a “hybrid war” Minsk is waging in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed in response to Mr Lukashenko’s crackdown on protests against his disputed re-election last year. The EU has agreed on new sanctions in response to the border crisis, which are due to be adopted next month.
But Mr Lukashenko has refused to back down and suggested it would not be a “big burden” for Germany to take in the stranded migrants.
In a veiled threat to Europe, he said: “If Afghans were to flock here, including from Ukraine – and you know you can go anywhere there with a bribe – Europe is going to drown.”
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is believed by many to be behind the current crisis.