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Lukashenko expects no humanitarian corridor to open for refugees

MINSK, 30 November (BelTA) - We will ask the refugees stranded on the border to return home, but we will not force them to do this, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov, Director General of the Russian state news agency MIA Rossiya Segodnya, BelTA has learned.

The head of state said that in the telephone conversation Germany’s acting Chancellor Angela Merkel asked him to repatriate these people. “I suggested that we do not use such harsh words. They mean we must do it by force. I told her right away and repeated it twice during our conversation that I would try to solve this problem before the New Year. We do not need it, either. There are lots of migrants in Minsk, Grodno and other places. Our people are not happy about it, either. We will ask these people, who have entered Belarus legally, on tourist visas, to return home, because there will be no humanitarian corridor. I had already returned more than a thousand of them to Iraq and I offered her to take in the people stranded on the border [earlier the head of state said that during his phone conversation with Merkel they discussed the possibility of Germany taking in the refugees rapped on the Belarusian-Polish border],” he said.

The president noted that the evacuation flights were financed by Iraq. As of last week, Belarus already spent $12.5 million on refugees. “Today this sum must be twice as much,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.

“Provision of food, heating, medical treatment,” Dmitry Kiselyov said.

“Exactly,” the president replied.

“The World Health Organization has sent some kind of help: stockings, hygiene kits, diapers, stuff like this,” the head of state added.

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