The Iraqi government has transported more than 3,500 migrants from the Polish-Belarusian border, Iraqi Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Al-Sahaf said on Sunday.
"Up to present, the ministry managed to organize nine evacuation flights from Minsk," the Iraqi News Agency (INA) cites Ahmed Al-Sahaf. He added that 3,556 migrants stranded on the Polish-Belarusian border returned to their homeland.
The spokesman noted that "up to now, 383 passports have been issued to migrants who lost their documents in Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland."
"The Iraqi embassies in Moscow and Warsaw continue to support Iraqi citizens who stranded on the border and decided to voluntarily return to their homeland." He also pointed out that special diplomatic delegations of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry have been working in Minsk, as well as in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
The migration crisis on Belarus’ borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where migrants began to flock to since the beginning of this year, went into high gear on November 8. Several thousand people, among them are migrants from the Middle East and Africa, approached the Polish border on the Belarusian side and tried to cross into Poland. In an attempt to storm the border, they broke a barbed wire fence.
