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Private Syrian carrier Cham Wings Airlines on Saturday halted flights to Minsk as hundreds of migrants mostly from the Middle East remained trapped on the Belarus-Poland border.
“Due to the difficult situation on the Belarus-Poland border and because most of the travellers on our flights to Minsk are Syrian citizens… we have decided to halt our flights to Minsk” as of Saturday, the airline said in a statement.
Cham Wings said it took the decision “because we cannot differentiate between travellers and migrants”.
The announcement came hours after Polish police said that the body of a young Syrian man had been found in a forest close to the border between Poland and Belarus.
“The cause of the death could not be determined at the scene,” the police said, adding that a group of around 100 migrants had attempted to cross the border during the night in the same area.
This is the right decision.
There is a humanitarian imperative to stop people falling prey to instrumentalised smuggling by #Belarus.
This follows the wise decision of the Turkish Civil Aviation authority and the assurances I received from our partners in the UAE and Lebanon. https://t.co/QVLlbR7qvq
— Margaritis Schinas (@MargSchinas) November 13, 2021
Thousands of migrants — mainly from the Middle East and including Kurds and Syrians — have crossed or attempted to cross the EU and NATO border since the summer.
The crisis escalated this week when larger groups of hundreds of migrants began arriving at the border and attempting to get through.
Poland is refusing to allow them to cross, with the West accusing Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko of luring them…
Source : france24
