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Minsk offers plans to reduce Belarus-Poland border problems | Migration Issues

Belarus has promised to repatriate 5,000 refugees and asylum seekers as part of a plan to end the conflict with Poland, a spokesman for President Alexander Lukashenko said.

Natalya Eismont said Thursday that the Belarussian leader had discussed the plan with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Belarus newspaper BELTA reported.

Under the ban, Minsk also wants the European Union to deport 2,000 asylum seekers and refugees trapped in cold border areas, having been denied access to the bloc.

“The European Union is developing a plan to help the 2,000 refugees in the camp. We are trying to guide – as far as possible and the rest of the 5,000 to return to their country,” Eismont said, summarizing the plan.

Iraqi flight back home

Merkel, who has spoken to Lukasjenko twice in recent days, has agreed to discuss the matter with 27 EU members, of which Poland is a member, BELTA said.

However, Berlin did not take immediate action and it is unclear whether the plan could be approved by the bloc, especially since the return of 5,000 of the asylum seekers and refugees was blocked by circumstances.

The EU chief of staff, the European Commission, has previously said there was no question of negotiating with Lukashenko on the issue, when Slovenian interior minister Ales Hojs on Thursday called for the blocyo to seal its foreign borders.

Speaking at an international conference on migration from Sarajevo, Hojs compared the current situation to the European refugee crisis of 2015, when the EU acknowledged almost a million people fleeing the war in Syria.

But, he said, there was a big difference.

“No more ‘Refugees Welcome’,” Hojs told the conference.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Iraqi people who have been camping for weeks at the border have boarded a flight to Baghdad. return flight Thursday.

“Unfortunately, only about 400 refugees have agreed to return. In fact, in the plane that took off today there were 374 people, mostly Iraqi citizens, “Eismont said.

“We are living up to our promises, while the EU has not fulfilled a single responsibility,” he added.

Things are getting worse

The EU recently increased sanctions on Belarus due to the difficult migration crisis.

The commission has criticized Lukashenko’s government for attracting refugees and refugees to the Belarus-Poland border, in retaliation for sanctions against the August 2020 elections, which gave him a sixth term and started anti-government protests.

Minsk has denied the allegations and said the EU should lift sanctions if it wants to end the crisis.

Jonah Hull of Al Jazeera, from the town of Sokolka, near the Polish-Belarus border, said the ground conditions were not deplorable.

“It’s cold by noon here, and this will confuse people of all walks of life,” he said.

“They now know that there is nowhere else to go, there is no way to the European Union, that is the only reason they came here, promising Belarus to be allowed to pass.”

Aid agencies say at least 11 refugees and internally displaced persons have died across the border since the crisis began earlier this year.

Along with Poland, other Eastern EU countries Latvia and Lithuania have refused to accept refugees and asylum seekers who want to join the bloc through Belarus.

People who have managed to enter the EU do not want to return, and many are trapped in forest edges in the winter.




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