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Over 4,000 migrants remain at Polish-Belarusian border — Iraqi Minister

Ivan Faiek Jabru confirmed that the Iraqi authorities oppose forced repatriation of migrants and insist on their voluntary return

MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. About 4,000 Iraqi migrants remain at the border between Belarus and Poland, Iraqi Minister of Migration and Displaced Ivan Faiek Jabru said Monday.

"Over 4,000 people remain in the Polish-Belarusian border area," she said, according to INA. "The Ministry [of Migration and Displaced] stays in contact with UN representatives, but most migrants currently in Polish camps refuse to return home."

The Minister added that a Ministry delegation traveled to Poland in order to "resolve the problems of the migrants who found themselves in a difficult situation."

Meanwhile, she confirmed that the Iraqi authorities "oppose forced repatriation of migrants and insist on their voluntary return."

On Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Al-Sahhaf informed that a total of 3,556 migrants have voluntarily returned home via special flights from Minsk to Iraq.

The migration crisis at the Belarusian border with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where the migrants traveled to en masse, escalated on November 8. Several thousand people approached the Polish border, some tries to break into Polish territory by breaking barbed wire barriers.