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Kurdish migrants from Iraq are staying at a logistic centre in Belarus where they were brought by Belarusian authorities who cleared the main camps on the border with Poland, on November 20, 2021. Photo: screengrab/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Hundreds of migrants including Kurds from Kurdistan Region are bunking in a logistic centre near Belarus’ border with Poland, sleeping in tents and on wooden pallets in a warehouse-like building that they were brought to after Belarusian authorities cleared the main camps on the border.
“We don’t want to return to Kurdistan at all. If Kurdistan was nice, we would stay there,” a Kurdish migrant told Rudaw at the centre, adding that only a few elites live well in the Kurdistan Region.
“We’ve been staying here for three nights and we were in the forest for 12 nights,” said another Kurdish migrant. “We’ll stay here until the last breath.”
Thousands of people, many of them Iraqi Kurds but also including citizens of Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan, have traveled to Belarus in recent months with the hope of reaching western Europe where they dream of better lives with more opportunities, but found themselves trapped on Belarus’ borders with Poland and Lithuania. Most Kurdish migrants cite unemployment or underemployment, financial hardships, lack of hope for a future at home, and political instability as reasons why they chose to make the journey. European Union nations have fortified their frontiers against the migrants and accused Minsk of manipulating the migrants in protest of sanctions imposed after contested presidential elections.
The dire condition of thousands of people, young and old in the cold with little food and water, has grabbed international headlines and mobilized Europe to cut off the migration route. The Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has begun registering the names of those who want to voluntarily return home. Over 400 people returned on Thursday, 95 percent of them were from the Kurdistan Region. European authorities have thanked the KRG for taking measures to limit the migration of people.
In Belarus, a Kurdish migrant told Rudaw that only a fraction of the people who want to go home have been able to register, citing problems with lost passports, lack of funds, and problems getting out of the camp.
“The KRG or the Iraqi government should come to this camp and help return those youths who have lost their passports,” he said, claiming that the Iraqi government has registered hundreds of people who are willing to return, “but it was in vain. Nothing has been done for them.”
Not everyone wants to go home. A father of eight said he would rather see his family die on the border than return to the Kurdistan Region. “Life is very good here. They provide us with food, water and everything. In Kurdistan, we were queuing for benzene and gas and here we queue for food and the toilet. There’s no difference. I have eight children and I am willing for them to die, but not return,” he said.
KRG officials have acknowledged the hardships that are driving its citizens to take the costly and dangerous journey to Europe, but say they are working to resolve the problem, including creating over 100,000 jobs in the last two years.
With the main camps cleared, Polish authorities say Belarus is now helping smaller groups of migrants to try and cross the border at multiple sites. “There is no question that these attacks are directed by Belarusian services,” Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told RMF FM radio on Saturday, AFP reported. He expects the problem could continue for months.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told the BBC it is “absolutely possible” his forces have helped migrants cross the border into Poland.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told Rudaw on Friday that Minsk is “using men, women and children as political pawns and it’s not something new in human history.”
“We’re trying to help. We’ve seen it more recently in the Balkans where people coming from Iraq and Afghanistan have been stuck. That’s our job to work with governments in terms of finding solutions. But those solutions do not include forcibly sending people to where they do not want to go,” he said.
Additional reporting by Kamiz Shadadi in Belarus and Majeed Gly in New York
“We don’t want to return to Kurdistan at all. If Kurdistan was nice, we would stay there,” a Kurdish migrant told Rudaw at the centre, adding that only a few elites live well in the Kurdistan Region.
“We’ve been staying here for three nights and we were in the forest for 12 nights,” said another Kurdish migrant. “We’ll stay here until the last breath.”
Thousands of people, many of them Iraqi Kurds but also including citizens of Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan, have traveled to Belarus in recent months with the hope of reaching western Europe where they dream of better lives with more opportunities, but found themselves trapped on Belarus’ borders with Poland and Lithuania. Most Kurdish migrants cite unemployment or underemployment, financial hardships, lack of hope for a future at home, and political instability as reasons why they chose to make the journey. European Union nations have fortified their frontiers against the migrants and accused Minsk of manipulating the migrants in protest of sanctions imposed after contested presidential elections.
The dire condition of thousands of people, young and old in the cold with little food and water, has grabbed international headlines and mobilized Europe to cut off the migration route. The Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has begun registering the names of those who want to voluntarily return home. Over 400 people returned on Thursday, 95 percent of them were from the Kurdistan Region. European authorities have thanked the KRG for taking measures to limit the migration of people.
In Belarus, a Kurdish migrant told Rudaw that only a fraction of the people who want to go home have been able to register, citing problems with lost passports, lack of funds, and problems getting out of the camp.
“The KRG or the Iraqi government should come to this camp and help return those youths who have lost their passports,” he said, claiming that the Iraqi government has registered hundreds of people who are willing to return, “but it was in vain. Nothing has been done for them.”
Not everyone wants to go home. A father of eight said he would rather see his family die on the border than return to the Kurdistan Region. “Life is very good here. They provide us with food, water and everything. In Kurdistan, we were queuing for benzene and gas and here we queue for food and the toilet. There’s no difference. I have eight children and I am willing for them to die, but not return,” he said.
KRG officials have acknowledged the hardships that are driving its citizens to take the costly and dangerous journey to Europe, but say they are working to resolve the problem, including creating over 100,000 jobs in the last two years.
With the main camps cleared, Polish authorities say Belarus is now helping smaller groups of migrants to try and cross the border at multiple sites. “There is no question that these attacks are directed by Belarusian services,” Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told RMF FM radio on Saturday, AFP reported. He expects the problem could continue for months.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told the BBC it is “absolutely possible” his forces have helped migrants cross the border into Poland.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told Rudaw on Friday that Minsk is “using men, women and children as political pawns and it’s not something new in human history.”
“We’re trying to help. We’ve seen it more recently in the Balkans where people coming from Iraq and Afghanistan have been stuck. That’s our job to work with governments in terms of finding solutions. But those solutions do not include forcibly sending people to where they do not want to go,” he said.
Additional reporting by Kamiz Shadadi in Belarus and Majeed Gly in New York
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