"Why do you think we're fleeing?": Iraqi repatriated from Belarusian border testifies
Audio 01:23
Iraqi migrants board a plane to return to Iraq at Minsk airport in Belarus on November 18, 2021. - AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Iraq will repatriate more migrants stranded at the border between Belarus and Poland, while thousands of Iraqis are still crowding there.
700 volunteers have registered to return, 400 others have even already returned to their country of origin.
RFI has found one of them.
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With our correspondent in Baghdad,
Lucile Wassermann
It is 8 am in Baghdad, and Wissam rushes into a taxi, direction the Ministry of Immigration. This 32-year-old Iraqi, just repatriated, is going to ask the authorities for a loan. He sold almost all of his property this summer in an attempt to reach Europe, without success. “
Apparently the Prime Minister is going to allocate money through the Immigration Department. They will facilitate obtaining a loan for those who have returned,
”he explains.
Arrived at the ministry, we will not be allowed to follow Wissam. We find him, after his interview, on the terrace of a cafe. His request has been filed, we must now be patient: “
I hope the government will find a solution ... It is because of them that people are leaving. Why do you think we're running away? Because we see the situation in the country and we say to ourselves that there is no hope, no future here.
"
Wissam spent more than two months in Belarus;
with the dream of moving to Poland.
But 10 days ago, he gave up and decided to use
the Iraq-chartered
repatriation flight
.
"
You had to endure the cold, the hunger, the thirst ... I really thought I would get there but I tried several times to cross the border, and it never worked,
" he says.
Today he had to return to Baghdad, but does not lose hope that other, more accessible roads will open up to Europe.
He is determined to flee the instability that reigns in Iraq.
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See also: the EU draws up a “black list” of airlines complicit in the smuggling of migrants
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Iraq
Belarus
Poland
European Union
International Migration