A flight of more than 400 people on board landed at Erbil International Airport in the evening.
Spokesperson for Iraq’s foreign ministry Ahmed al-Sahaf on Saturday said 419 people were to return from Belarus, according to state media.
Thousands of people, many of them Iraqi Kurds, with the help of Kurdish smugglers, have traveled to Belarus in recent months, hoping to reach western Europe in a search for jobs and opportunities they feel they cannot access at home where unemployment is high and political tensions, corruption, and instability leave them with little hope for their future.
The migrants, stuck on the frontier between Polish and Belarusian forces, were fenced in with no food or water and fearing for their lives as temperatures drop.
“I will never go back. I will not trade a minute of Kurdistan for there,” Mohammed Sabah told Rudaw’s Bahroz Faraidoon from Erbil airport upon his arrival.
Another migrant vowed to still leave the Kurdistan Region.
“Any time it works out for me I will leave again,” Mohammed Faris said, noting that he is not pleased to have returned to Erbil.
The Iraqi government and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) organized the first voluntary repatriation flight in mid-November. Over 1,800 migrants returned to the Kurdistan Region in the first five flights, according to data from the KRG.
A sixth flight landed in Erbil on Thursday.
Over 400 Iraqi and Kurdish migrants landed at Erbil International Airport late Thursday after being stuck on Belarus-Poland border for weeks.
— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) December 2, 2021
More than 2,000 migrants have been returned by the KRG and Iraqi government so far.
📸: Bilind T. Abdullah pic.twitter.com/RtHNGaZAmO
The exodus of Kurds is part of a migrant crisis that has compelled European nations to fortify their borders. Tensions are high between Belarus and Europe. Minsk has been accused of exploiting the migrants and using them as a pressure tactic against the European Union in answer to sanctions. Poland has refused to take in any migrants, instead calling on them to return home. At least 13 people have died on the Belarus-Poland border.
Another migrant, Avin Irfan, who is originally from Duhok’s Zakho, also lost her life on Friday night, Irfan’s doctor Arsalan Bakir told Rudaw. Irfan was taken to a hospital in Poland on November 11, after she fell sick due to the cold weather and lack food. Her husband and five children were left in a makeshift camp on the Belarus-Poland border.
Irfan was also pregnant and had a stillbirth on the borders.
Twenty-seven people, who are believed to be mostly Kurdish, including three children, died in the deadliest migrant boat tragedy between France and the United Kingdom last week.
Related: Exclusive: Migrant survivor says British coastguard ignored call for help
Around 37,000 people left Kurdistan and Iraq in the first ten months of 2021, according to the Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugee and Displaced Affairs.
The KRG has acknowledged the existence of systemic problems and financial hardships but says it is working to address these issues.
