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Germany's Federal Police Head Dieter Romann speaks with Rudaw's Alla Shally on November 13, 2021. Photo: Rudaw/Screenshot
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The head of Germany’s federal police force observed on Saturday that the majority of those who have recently attempted to migrate to Europe are doing so because they do not see a future in their own countries.
“Decision makers at the migration office tell us that most of the migrants feel they have no future and believe the lies of the smugglers,” Dieter Romann told Rudaw’s Alla Shally in an interview this weekend, adding that both the Iraqi government and the international community must address the causes of fears about a lack of future.
“It is better to help your country so that hardship and injury ends, and it is the national duty of each Iraqi citizen to do that. Families have invested a lot in raising you; this is a matter of honour, and you shouldn’t follow a lie,” Romann said, reiterating that those attempting to cross the European border are being lied to if they had been told that they could get into Germany.
At least 8,000 Kurds have travelled to Belarus with the hopes of gaining access to western Europe, which has fortified itself against the wave of migration and accused Minsk of luring desperate migrants to the border in protest of sanctions.
When asked about a possible solution for the thousands of migrants currently in the situation on the border, he told Shally that one country could not deal with this on their own, and that the crisis required “a political solution”, adding that the German Chancellor has talked to Russian president Vladimir Putin about the issue.
According to Romann, up to 75 percent of the migrants who have travelled from Belarus to Poland are Iraqi citizens, with 15 percent Syrian, and the rest drawing from Yemen and Iran.
Earlier on Monday, videos of migrants marching towards the border near the village of Kuzinca circulated on social media. They have set up tents and are camping out in the cold at a checkpoint faced by dozens of Polish guards and armored vehicles.
“Decision makers at the migration office tell us that most of the migrants feel they have no future and believe the lies of the smugglers,” Dieter Romann told Rudaw’s Alla Shally in an interview this weekend, adding that both the Iraqi government and the international community must address the causes of fears about a lack of future.
“It is better to help your country so that hardship and injury ends, and it is the national duty of each Iraqi citizen to do that. Families have invested a lot in raising you; this is a matter of honour, and you shouldn’t follow a lie,” Romann said, reiterating that those attempting to cross the European border are being lied to if they had been told that they could get into Germany.
At least 8,000 Kurds have travelled to Belarus with the hopes of gaining access to western Europe, which has fortified itself against the wave of migration and accused Minsk of luring desperate migrants to the border in protest of sanctions.
When asked about a possible solution for the thousands of migrants currently in the situation on the border, he told Shally that one country could not deal with this on their own, and that the crisis required “a political solution”, adding that the German Chancellor has talked to Russian president Vladimir Putin about the issue.
According to Romann, up to 75 percent of the migrants who have travelled from Belarus to Poland are Iraqi citizens, with 15 percent Syrian, and the rest drawing from Yemen and Iran.
Earlier on Monday, videos of migrants marching towards the border near the village of Kuzinca circulated on social media. They have set up tents and are camping out in the cold at a checkpoint faced by dozens of Polish guards and armored vehicles.
Migrants gather on the Belarusian-Polish border near the Polish town of Kuznica on November 15, 2021.
— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) November 15, 2021
📸: AFP pic.twitter.com/0rvzuFJpuC
In response, Poland has tightened its border security. Some migrants on the Belarus-Poland border have sustained injuries, and several have now lost their lives. On Wednesday, a 14-year-old Kurdish boy died from the freezing conditions.
Romann also talked about the death of a 32-year-old Iraqi in the back of a truck, telling Shally that he had heard of the event directly from people who were with him when he died. “The person who died was in Belarus and was badly injured, he received poor treatment so he died,” adding that the driver of the truck was arrested.
Iraq on Sunday said it will bring home a first flight of migrants who want to return from the Belarus-Poland border at the end of this week.
“I know Baghdad and Erbil are ready to return the Iraqis who want to voluntarily return, but this has been prevented until now in Minsk. This needs a political solution in order to avoid the situation getting worse,” Romann noted.
The Iraqi government has 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. Turkey, which many Kurds use as a pathway to Belarus, has banned Iraqi citizens from boarding flights to Minsk.
“Our colleagues from the border protection guards at the Polish border have confirmed that 99 percent of the migrants want to come to Germany,” Romann said. He added that they have arrested 330 smugglers, of whom up to 16 percent are German citizens, some themselves migrants.
He noted that around 30,000 people have been deported to their countries, and that over 9,300 illegal migrants have entered Germany from Belarus and via Poland so far this year.
According to German federal police statistics shared with Rudaw, 5,285 migrants entered the country by this route in October, and 1,488 more migrants have crossed into Germany from Poland so far this month (up to and including 11 November).
Since October 2020, the EU has imposed restrictive measures against Belarus, adopted in response to concerns over the 2020 presidential election, intimidation and violent repression of peaceful protesters, opposition members and journalists.
EU members of the United Nations Security Council and the US condemned Belarus for the migrant crisis on its borders on Friday, describing it as an “orchestrated instrumentalisation of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus.”
Romann said that what Belarus is doing will be a reason for the “European Union to be more united, that’s why Belarus can’t create instability in Europe through these migrants, the opposite will happen.”
The European Union has vowed new sanctions on Belarus in the “coming days,” a top official said on Monday as thousands of migrants, including children, remain along the Belarus-Poland border.
The new sanctions would hit "quite an important number" of individuals and entities for "facilitating illegal border crossings into the EU,” AFP quoted EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell as saying.
"By expanding the scope of the sanctions we will be able to target those responsible for exploiting vulnerable migrants," Borrell added.
Additional reporting by Layal Shakir
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