Yesterday, the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displacement confirmed that Belarus is pushing Iraqi migrants towards the forests of the border state of Lithuania, to put pressure on the European Union.
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Immigration, Karim Al-Nouri, said in a statement, “The phenomenon of Iraqis traveling to Belarus began months ago, and mafias and gangs spread to smuggle Iraqis towards Lithuania and Poland, and then to Europe.”
“But there is a real problem between the European Union and Belarus, which prompted the latter to pressure by pushing the Iraqis into the forests between Belarus and Lithuania,” al-Nouri added.
Iraq has formed a committee from the Ministry of Immigration and Intelligence and the Civil Status Directorate, and has suspended travel to Belarus as a message of goodwill to the European Union, which threatened Iraq with sanctions.
Al-Nouri stressed that “the Iraqi government is following up the situation of the stranded Iraqis there, and we will facilitate their return to Iraq through the Russian embassy, as there is no Iraqi embassy in Belarus.”
