The private Syrian airline Cham Wings is suspending its flights to Belarus with reference to the situation on the Belarusian-Polish border.
The connection to Minsk will be discontinued with immediate effect because the airline “cannot distinguish between travelers and migrants” among passengers, the airline said on Saturday.
The EU accuses Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of luring people from countries like Syria and Iraq into the country in retaliation for EU sanctions and then smuggling them to the borders of the EU states Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
The Turkish civil aviation authority announced on Friday that tickets for flights from Turkey to Belarus can no longer be sold to Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni citizens. The citizens of these states are also no longer allowed to board planes that fly to Belarus. This applies not only to Turkish Airlines, but also to the Belarusian airline Belavia. The authority justified the step with the illegal border crossings from Belarus into the European Union. Previously, the EU had increased the pressure on non-European airlines not to participate in the smuggling of migrants.
At first it didn't seem as if the EU had any leverage to influence Damascus as well.
Cham Wing Airlines, a small private company owned by a cousin of ruler Bashar al-Assad, operates from there.
EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell said in the European Parliament this week that the line, which owns three planes, has so far made its living transporting mercenaries from the Russian company Wagner “and has now found an obviously more lucrative job by being in one Flew back and forth between Damascus and Belarus twenty times a week ”.
He added: "And she sold all the tickets for the next few flights."