MINSK, November 15. /TASS/. Belarus is ready to facilitate the repatriation of refugees stranded on the border with Poland back to their homeland, but they do not want to return home, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus said on Monday according to BelTA news agency.
"We are ready, as always, to put everyone on airplanes, including Belavia’s, to take them back home. But these people, I must say, are very stubborn, nobody wants to go back," the Belarusian president said.
At the same time, Lukashenko admitted that the immigrants have nowhere to return to. "They do not have any housing there, they understand that there is nothing to feed their children. Moreover, some would simply fear for their lives, if they went back," he said. He said, "we are busily working to persuade [these] people to kindly go back home". "But no one wants to return," the head of state pointed out.
According to the agency, Lukashenko also said that the Belarusian authorities are doing everything in their power to prevent the refugees from amassing along the state border. Lukashenko also noted, Belarus is ready to transport the immigrants, stuck in limbo on the border with Poland, to Munich on Belavia planes.
Lukashenko said that if "the Poles do not provide a humanitarian corridor, if they prevent this, we can use Belavia to transport them to Munich. What’s the problem? We will take them with our own planes and transport them to Munich, if necessary," he said.
The migration crisis on Belarus’ borders with Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, where migrants began to flock to since the beginning of this year, went into high gear on November 8. Several thousand people approached the Polish border on the Belarusian side and tried to cross into Poland. In an attempt to storm the border, they broke a barbed wire fence. At present, there are about 2,000 migrants in a makeshift camp. EU member-states have blamed Minsk for the intentional escalation of the crisis and called for more sanctions. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that in this situation the responsibility rested squarely on Western countries, whose policies had forced people to flee from war.