Iraq evacuates its stranded nationals, Lebanon and Uzbekistan ban travel to Belarus

Iraq sent a plane to evacuate its citizens stranded in Belarus, while Lebanon imposed travel restrictions to it, and Uzbekistan banned transit flights for citizens of Middle Eastern countries.

The Iraqi government announced that it had sent a civilian plane on Thursday morning to evacuate its nationals stranded at the border between Belarus and the European Union countries.

The Iraqi Airways Company, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Transport, said in a statement that one of its planes went on an emergency flight from Baghdad International Airport to Minsk Airport in Belarus to evacuate the stranded Iraqis there.

She added that the trip comes after obtaining official approvals from the Iraqi and Belarusian higher authorities. While the spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Al-Sahhaf, said in a statement, "430 Iraqi immigrants have been documented traveling to Iraq on the evacuation flight that will be today."

For its part, Uzbekistan has banned air transit flights for citizens of some Middle Eastern countries to Belarus.

And the Uzbek Civil Aviation Authority announced in a statement, Thursday, the suspension of the transit (transit) of citizens of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Libya and Afghanistan to Belarus via Uzbekistan.

She noted that the aforementioned restriction excludes holders of diplomatic passports and citizens of the mentioned countries who have a residence permit in Belarus.

In the same context, Lebanon announced, on Wednesday, the imposition of restrictions on travel to Belarus, in an attempt to reduce the migrant crisis at the border with Poland.

This came in a circular issued by the Director General of Civil Aviation, Fadi Al-Hassan, to all airlines at Rafic Hariri International Airport, in Beirut.

The circular stipulates that "passengers heading from Lebanon to Belarus are restricted to Lebanese who have entry visas to it or who have residency, in addition to Belarusian citizens, Arabs and foreigners who have residency there."

He pointed out that this procedure "includes direct passengers or transit (transit) at intermediate airports between the two countries."

According to the circular, "many Arab and foreign travelers have recently arrived in Belarus from Beirut, in light of the critical conditions on the Belarusian-Polish border."

According to the circular, "it was revealed that the purpose of their travel was to move to the border with Poland in order to enter the territory of the European Union in cooperation with smuggling networks."

According to the latest EU figures, 7,935 people have attempted to enter the EU through its border with Belarus so far this year.

For weeks, Poland has prevented hundreds of Iraqi migrants from Belarus from entering its territory in "irregular" ways, which prompted the latter to tighten its borders to prevent the return of these migrants to it, which led to their being stuck between the two countries' borders in poor conditions.

The European Union accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of coordinating the arrival of the wave of migrants and refugees to the eastern side of the bloc, in response to the European sanctions imposed on his country after his regime's "brutal repression" against the opposition.