DUHOK, Kurdistan Region - Thirteen members of Khalid Bakoz's family from Duhok have traveled to Belarus. Three made it to Germany and the others are stuck on the Belarus-Poland border.
“He left a huge void behind him,” Bakoz said of his son who is on the border. “He was so beloved among us and now he’s gone. We lost him.”
Nearly 4,000 Kurds have traveled through Belarus this year, according to the Europe’s Deported Migrants Association. They are part of around 37,000 people from Kurdistan Region and Iraq who have left the country so far this year, according to the Summit Foundation for Refugee and Displaced Affairs.
Hundreds of migrants are now camped out in the cold on the fortified border with Poland, unable to move with Belarus forces behind them and Polish border guards in front of them. The body of a young Syrian man was found in a forest near the border on Saturday, Polish police said. Eleven migrants have died at the border since summer, AFP reported.
Minsk is accused of “weaponizing” the migrants, making it easy for them to obtain visas to enter Belarus and then cross the border into European Union nations Lithuania, Latvia, or Poland in protest of sanctions imposed after a contested presidential election last year. European Union nations at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday issued a statement condemning “the orchestrated instrumentalisation of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus.”
The scenes of migrants camping in the cold at the Belarus-Poland border are not deterring young Kurds hoping to make the trip themselves.
“We're eight people who agreed to travel together. The majority of us are university graduates. We’ve all applied for several jobs, we’ve all searched for jobs, we’re all able to work. What should we do when there are no jobs in this country?” said a would-be migrant who asked to remain anonymous.
He graduated from university with a Bachelor’s degree in history three years ago and is working as a teacher without a permanent contract, getting paid 250,000 dinars [$171] monthly. Non-contract teachers are paid less and do not get benefits afforded to their contracted colleagues and have protested recently.
Unemployment, underemployment, and despair of building a good life in the Kurdistan Region are factors driving thousands of Kurds to seek a better future abroad via irregular routes.
“Lack of jobs, unemployment, political instability, these are the main reasons, I think,” said Zahir Ibrahim whose 22-year-old brother gave up his job in a bakery and left for Belarus.
Under pressure from Europe, Baghdad closed Belarusian missions that were issuing visas. But Minsk instead began issuing electronic visas, according to Soran travel agent Mohammed Aziz Agha. “After the consulates in Baghdad and Erbil were closed, the Belarus visa process was eased and it has been changed to invitation visa,” he said, a stack of passports on his desk.
Baghdad also stopped flights between Iraq and Belarus, and Turkey has banned citizens of Iraq, Syria, and Yemen from boarding planes bound for Belarus out of Turkish airports.
Reporting by Naif Ramadhan and Bakhtiyar Qadir
Translation and editing by Sarkawt Mohammed
