Iraq grants 420 return permits to migrants stuck in Belarus

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq has granted 420 laissez-passers to migrants stranded on the Belarus-Polish border who wish to return, the country’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday as efforts continue to repatriate migrants stranded across European borders.

"The ministry has granted 420 passports to Iraqis who wish to return voluntarily from those stranded at the Belarusian border,” Iraqi state media quoted the foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed al-Sahaf as saying, adding that the process had arisen from the efforts of Iraq's embassies in Moscow and Warsaw, as well as consular teams in Belarus, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Thousands of Iraqi and Kurdish people have traveled to Eastern Europe in recent months, where they hoped to cross over and make their way to Germany and, from there, the rest of Europe.

In response, Poland has tightened its border security. Some migrants on the Belarus-Poland border have sustained injuries, and several others have lost their lives.

On Tuesday, Sahaf said that Iraq’s embassy in Poland will offer Iraqi migrants stuck on the Polish-German border laissez-passers to voluntarily return home.

Iraq began offering repatriation flights last month, returning over 3,000 Iraqi and Kurdish migrants from Minsk.

Erbil and Baghdad have accused Minsk of exploiting the migrants for political gain against the European Union. Iraq suspended the work of both the honorary embassy of Belarus in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil in an effort to prevent its citizens from traveling to Minsk.

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. Poland has refused to take in any migrants, instead calling on them to return home.

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani received a phone call from the British Home Secretary Priti Patel on Thursday. They discussed the migration of people to Europe and crises related to the issue, with Barzani telling Patel that the Region will “cooperate with the Iraqi federal government and European countries to encourage the voluntary return of migrants,” according to a statement from his office.

It has not yet been revealed whether either official raised the issue of the 27 migrants who drowned in the English Channel last month. The Paris prosecutor’s office on Tuesday announced that they had identified all but one of the migrants, with 17 Kurds among the dead.