Nationals of Iraq, Syria and Yemen now have the ban “to buy tickets and board for Belarus from airports in Turkey”, announced the Turkish Aviation Authority on Friday 12 November. The air authority specifies that this measure will remain in force “until further notice”, while the regime of Alexander Lukashenko is accused of transporting migrants to Europe. The Belarusian airline company Belavia had already announced in the morning that it had been banned by the Turkish authorities from boarding nationals of these three countries from Turkey.
Due to the problem of illegal border crossings between the European Union and Belarus, it has been decided that the citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen who want to travel to Belarus from Turkish airports will not be allowed to buy tickets and boarding until further notice.
– Sivil Havacılık GM (@SHGM) November 12, 2021
A few thousand migrants, mainly from the Near and Middle East, are stranded in difficult conditions at the border between Belarus and Poland, which prevents them from passing. The Turkish national company Turkish Airlines reacted on Tuesday to the “press information” accusing him of “trafficking in human beings” to Belarus. She had assured, in a press release, “take into account all the necessary security measures concerning its international flights, in cooperation with the international authorities”. These accusations “do not reflect reality”, she had insisted.
More than 2,000 people, including Kurds, have been trapped for several days in a makeshift camp on the Belarusian side of the demarcation with Poland. The European Union accuses Minsk of having organized these migratory movements, by issuing visas and chartering flights, in particular from Turkey, to avenge the Western sanctions imposed on the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko last year, after the brutal repression of opponents.
In addition, Baghdad announced the future repatriation of Iraqis who “wish” from Belarus. The Iraqi government is therefore working to register its nationals stranded at the border with Poland, said Mohammed Al-Sahaf, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to offer them a “urgent response”. In practice, however, migrants rarely have the opportunity to turn around after arriving at the border. Once there, “I wanted” [retourner à Minsk]“, said an Iraqi migrant met by franceinfo,“but a Belarusian soldier told me it was forbidden despite my tourist visa.”