Iraqi migrants caught in border tensions in Belarus fly home

By DARIA LITVINOVA and YURAS KARMANAU
Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — Hundreds of Iraqis are flying home from Belarus, abandoning their hopes of reaching the European Union following more than a week of tensions at the bloc’s eastern border. Thousands of migrants became stuck there. Belarusian state-run media reported that many others moved into a heated warehouse to escape the bitter cold, emptying out a camp near the border with Poland. But the Polish Defense Ministry posted a video that showed a few hundred people and their tents remained at an official crossing. It was not clear if the two countries were talking about two different locations on their long shared border. Such dueling narratives have been a hallmark of the crisis.