Reaction The EU values sanctioning Belarus immediately for "state kidnapping"
Opposition Lukashenko forces a plane to land in Belarus to arrest a dissident
The British government instructed his country's airlines on Monday to
avoid the airspace of Belarus
and suspended the flight permit of his company Belevia, a day after Minsk diverted a flight to stop an opponent. "Following the forced diversion of a Ryanair plane to Minsk yesterday,
I have asked the civil aviation authority to request that airlines avoid Belarusian airspace
to maintain passenger safety. I have also suspended Belavia's operating permit." Transport Minister
Grant Shapps announced
on Twitter.
A measure to which several Baltic countries such as Lithuania are joining. The Prosecutor's Office of that country also announced today the opening of a criminal investigation after the Belarusian authorities diverted a Ryanair airline flight from Athens to Vilnius to Minsk airport, an incident that it described as "kidnapping" and to which it adds the illegal disappearance of people. After the aircraft landed in Minsk, authorities detained
26-year-old
dissident Belarusian journalist
Roman Protasevich
and his girlfriend, Russian
Sofia Sapega
, a student at a Lithuanian university. Four other people, who could be Belarusian agents who were following the journalist from Athens, also did not continue the trip to Vilnius.
A French citizen explained to journalists last night when the plane arrived at Vilnius airport that Protasevich, sitting two rows in front of him,
initially panicked when the pilot announced that the
plane would
land in Minsk
.
"He yelled and argued with the flight attendants, saying no, they couldn't land. Afterward, he was no longer scared or angry," the traveler explained in statements collected by the Lithuanian news portal 15min.
He added that the passengers had to stay for about seven hours in an area of the Minsk airport, where they
had access to food and drink, but could not go to the bathroom.
.
Another traveler explained that initially he thought that the landing of the plane in Minsk was due to some problem with the plane, although later he understood that this was not the real reason.
When Protasevich, sitting three rows from this passenger, heard the news that they were going to land in the Belarusian capital, he got up, opened the luggage rack, began to remove things from his bag that could contain information, such as his mobile and his laptop, and gave them to his girlfriend, he added. At first, the journalist was nervous, but when he realized that there was no way to change anything,
"he calmed down and assumed the situation," he
added. Once on the ground, the passengers got off the plane and were put on a bus and he was able to see how Protasevich's belongings were searched, who was accompanied by a policeman in the vehicle and who was taken by five or six other agents at the terminal, he said .
Several airlines announced a change in their flight routes in order to avoid Belarusian airspace. Latvian airline Air Baltic specified that its flights from Riga to the Ukrainian city of Odessa and the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, will fly over Poland and Russia, respectively, to avoid Belarus. Meanwhile,
the Hungarian airline Wizz Air will modify its route
from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to Tallinn, that of Estonia. The same plans to do the Lithuanian charter airline Avion Express that flies from the Baltic countries to destinations in the Mediterranean, local media reported. A spokeswoman for the Latvian Civil Aviation authorities reported that the Latvian charter airline Smartlinx
will also stop flying over Belarusian airspace.
For its part, the Swedish Transport Agency said today that
Swedish airlines should consider avoiding Belarusian airspace
after a Belarusian fighter jet intercepted Roman Protasevich's flight between Greece and Lithuania and forced him to land. in Minsk.
"The Swedish Transport Agency encourages Swedish airlines to
regard the situation as uncertain
and that they should therefore avoid flying in Belarusian airspace," it said in a statement, adding that the decision was in line with a recommendation from the Aviation Safety Agency of the European Union.
The Belarusian version
Belarusian authorities explained on Monday that the Ryanair flight was threatened in an email claiming to be from the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas, reports Afp.
"We, Hamas soldiers, demand that Israel cease fire on the Gaza sector. We demand that the European Union cease its support for Israel (...) if our demands are not satisfied a bomb will explode (aboard the Ryanair plane ) over Vilnius, "said the air transport director of the Belarusian Ministry of Transport, claiming to read a Russian translation of a message received in English.
Incident at Minsk airport
The Minsk airport in Belarus reported on Monday that it had delayed the boarding of a
Lufthansa
flight
to Frankfurt
for security reasons, after receiving
a warning about a possible terrorist act
from the Belarusian authorities.
"We are following the indications of the local authorities that
are re-registering the plane before departure
and redoing the security controls on the passengers," explained a Lufthansa spokesman, specifying that
it is flight LH1487.
The flight has finally taken off after carrying out these checks.
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