how Syrians try to reach Minsk from Beirut

In the hall of the Beirut airport, there are a dozen migrants leaving for Minsk, the Belarusian capital. Lonely men, with little baggage. The faces display a mixture of excitement and worry. Relatives are there, take some pictures. Those of the final departure, not the departure on vacation.

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“I am a refugee from Syria, loose a young man. In Beirut, it’s too difficult to get a visa. You have to go through Syria, through someone. It costs $ 4,800 “, he adds before heading to the first control and the check-in counters. Remained in the hall, those who accompanied him justify his departure: “There is nothing here, nothing at all to live on. Everyone is in misery. So if you can go, you go, sums up a man who presents himself as one of his brothers.

“There have been European sanctions, so Belarus gives visas. It’s legal, they are clean visas.”

The brother of a departing Syrian

to franceinfo

“But if it’s so easy, there’s something behind it”, he wonders, however, before being interrupted by a Lebanese who seems to supervise these trips. “Everyone who is there is going to Belarus. They are going there for tourism. If you want to know, you can go to Facebook and find out how it works. Nobody can do it for you.”, launches the forties, suspicious.

The family won’t say more. The Belarusian company, which operates these flights, either: “The ticket is $ 1,400. We are an airline, we don’t give visas, we don’t give contacts, we have to see with the embassy”, annoys an operator on the phone. He talks about the Belarusian embassy in Syria, because there is none in Lebanon. Just an honorary consul who also sends him back to Damascus.

“The intermediaries are in Lebanon, but it’s not official”, finally confides the employee of a small travel agency in Beirut, before explaining that an invitation is “sent“from Belarus. “The visa is issued by the embassy in Syria, he continues. The intermediaries take care of everything. But you have to find them, call them. They don’t have an office. Everything is illegal “.