Over 400 more migrants stuck for weeks in Belarus to land in Erbil on Friday afternoon

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In what will be the latest among a series of government-chartered flights returning would-be migrants stuck for weeks in freezing weather on the border of Belarus while attempting to immigrate to European Union member states, Kurdistan 24 has learned that over 400 additional Iraqi nationals will be flown back to their home country on Friday afternoon.

It will mark the 9th repatriation flight organized jointly by Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) an estimated 420 migrants, including children, and will arrive at Erbil International Airport from Minsk at 5 p.m. local time on Friday.

Once the new flight touches down and the travelers are processed by immigration officers, a total of 3,468 migrants will have returned since Nov. 18 out of thousands initially trapped on the border.

In a recent interview with Kurdistan 24, Safeen Dizayee, the head of KRG Department of Foreign Relations, said that the migrants had been the victims of the criminal smuggling networks that brought them to the European borders.

The regional Ministry of Interior, he said, was carrying out an investigation to identify and prosecute the human traffickers involved in the scheme that he said were "playing with the people’s lives."

The KRG has conducted a number of arrests to disrupt these criminal networks, he added. 

Read More: Nearly 2000 migrants have returned to Iraq: KRG Official