Iraq to evacuate migrants stranded at Belarus-Poland border

By DARIA LITVINOVA and YURAS KARMANAU
Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — More than 400 Iraqis are seeking to fly home from Belarus, abandoning their hopes of reaching the European Union following more than a week of tensions at the bloc’s eastern border. Hundreds of migrants remain stuck there. A plane carrying an unknown number is expected to depart from Minsk in the early afternoon Thursday. It will make two stops — one in the city of Erbil and another in the capital, Baghdad. An Iraqi official says that 430 Iraqis have registered for flights home. Since Nov. 8, a large group of people, mostly from the Middle East, has been stranded in Belarus at a border crossing with Poland. They were trapped as forces from the two countries face off against each other.