Belarus threatens to send migrants back to Syria and Iraq
QAMISHLI, Syria (North press) – Belarus started to deport the migrants who failed to cross the border to Poland, considering their physical health according to human rights organization, the American National Public Radio (NPR) said on Sunday.
The NPR reported Syrians as saying that they were chosen either to return by themselves or to face capture and forcible deportation to Syria or Iraq.
On November 8, the immigration crisis arose on Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland’s borders where the migrants have crowded since the beginning of this year.
The NPR reported how seven Syrians were able to flee through the hostels’ windows where they stayed in Minsk after the arrival of some Belarusian officials, but the others were caught and their passports were pulled.
Those were some of thousands of migrants who were brought to the country via visas to the European Union, but now they are being asked to return, and some of them were deported to Syria.
The report quoted Natalia Prokopchuk, the Regional Public Information Officer of the UNHCR as saying “we received reports about deporting the migrants to Syria and Iraq”.
“Belarus, as it had signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, is breaking the international law by deporting the migrants to a country where they are persecuted,” she added.
“We are in front of two choices; either to return by ourselves or being forcibly deported to Syria,” one of the Syrians told the NPR.
Despite some Syrians appeal to the authorities in Belarus not to deport them since the Syrian government will catch them, but Minsk forcibly deported them.
On December 8, a plane of the Syrian government Sham Wings with 97 Syrian persons on board, took off from Minsk and landed at Damascus International Airport.