Migration crisis: Syrian airline suspends flights to Belarus

Published on : 11/13/2021 – 9:43 PM

At a time when thousands of migrants, especially Syrians, are stranded at the border between Belarus and Poland, the private Syrian airline Cham Wings Airlines announced, Saturday, November 13, the end of its flights to Minsk, the Belarusian capital.

The statement comes hours after Polish police reported the death of a Syrian at the border.

“Due to the difficult situation at the border between Belarus and Poland, and because most of the passengers on our flights to Minsk are Syrian citizens, we have decided to stop our flights” to the Belarusian capital from Saturday, the company said in a statement.

She justified her decision by saying that she was unable to “tell the difference” between migrants and others on board her planes.

Thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, have crossed or attempted to cross the border from Belarus in recent months to enter Lithuania, Poland or Latvia.

Migrants have reported being forced by Belarusian forces to cross the border before being turned back by Polish border guards, remaining stranded at the border, with temperatures close to 0 ° C.

>> Belarus: how migrants found themselves trapped at the gates of Europe

Eleven dead

Polish police said in a statement on Saturday that they had discovered the body of a young Syrian near the Belarus-Poland border, adding that the causes of death had not yet been determined.

This death would bring to eleven the number of fatal victims of the migration crisis on this border between the EU and Belarus, according to media estimates.

The European Union accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of having deliberately provoked this migratory movement in response to the economic sanctions it took following the repression of the opposition in his country.

Cham Wings is the only private Syrian company that operates flights to the capital, Minsk, as the state-owned company SyrianAir is under international sanctions imposed after the start of the war in Syria in 2011.

The Turkish Aviation Authority announced on Friday that nationals of Iraq, Syria and Yemen were not allowed “to buy tickets and board for Belarus from airports in Turkey.”

People from Syria and Iraq recently traveled to Lebanon to try to fly to Minsk, Lebanese officials said.

“A month ago we prevented Iraqis (wanting to go to Minsk) from entering Lebanon,” said one of them.

With AFP