Nearly 2000 migrants have returned to Iraq: KRG Official

Around 100-150 returned at their own expense, the diplomat added.
Iraqi migrants who were flown home from the Belarusian capital Minsk, display wounds on their hands from extreme cold sustained while trying to cross into the European Union from Belarus, Nov. 26, 2021. (Photo: Safin Hamed/AFP)
Iraqi migrants who were flown home from the Belarusian capital Minsk, display wounds on their hands from extreme cold sustained while trying to cross into the European Union from Belarus, Nov. 26, 2021. (Photo: Safin Hamed/AFP)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Safeen Dizayee, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Foreign Relations Department (DFR), told Kurdistan 24 on Sunday that approximately 2,000 of the migrants who traveled from Iraq to the Belarus-Poland border have returned. 

More than 1,900 migrants have returned to Iraq since Nov. 18, when the first batch of the stranded Iraqi nationals was flown back home on a government-sponsored flight from the Belarusian capital Minsk, Dizayee said. 

Around 100-150 returned at their own expense, the diplomat added.

Thousands of migrants from Iraq traveled to the Belarus-Poland border in hopes of entering a European Union country. They ended up trapped in freezing conditions on the international frontier, causing a crisis that drew international attention. 

The KRG, in cooperation with the Iraqi Foreign Ministry and Iraqi Airways, has organized repatriation flights for migrants willing to return to the country voluntarily. 

The latest batch of migrants arrived back in Iraq on Nov. 26.

The official said that the migrants had been the victims of criminal smuggling networks which brought the Iraqis to the European borders. 

The KRG has arrested a number of people in a bid to disrupt these criminal networks, Dizayee added. 

According to the official, nearly 2,000 Iraqi Kurds are still in Belarus and its border areas with Poland.