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Thousands of migrants and refugees remain stranded at the freezing frontier as the EU prepares to hit Minsk with fresh sanctions.
The European Union is set to widen sanctions on Belarus as a migration crisis deepens along its border with Poland.
Foreign ministers from the EU’s 27 member states were expected to approve the measures at a meeting in Brussels on Monday. The sanctions may also target airlines and travel agents involved in transporting migrants and refugees to Belarus.
Thousands of people remain stranded in freezing conditions on both sides of the Belarus-Poland border. They are being barred from entering the bloc as a geopolitical dispute between the West and Minsk rages.
Poland and other EU member states have for months accused Belarus of encouraging people to try and cross the Polish border in revenge for an earlier round of Western sanctions on Minsk over a disputed August 2020 election which handed longtime President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term and provoked mass anti-government protests.
Minsk denies those charges and has threatened to retaliate against any new measures, including by shutting down the flow of Russian gas supplies to Europe via pipelines that transit through Belarusian territory.
Here are all the latest updates:
‘Nobody wants to go back’: Lukashenko
Belarus is trying to persuade the migrants and refugees camped out near its western border to return home, but with no success, Lukashenko has been quoted as saying by state news agency BelTA.
“Active work is under way in this area, to convince people – please, return home. But nobody wants to go back,” he said.
The Belarusian leader also reiterated warnings that Minsk would retaliate against any new sanctions imposed on it by the West, BelTA reported.
EU aims to sanction Belarus travel agents, top diplomat says
The EU hopes to extend its sanctions against Belarus to include airlines, travel agents and other people involved in transporting migrants and refugees to the country, the bloc’s top diplomat has said.
Arriving at the EU foreign ministers’ meeting, Josep Borrell told reporters he had warned the Belarusian foreign minister over the weekend that the situation at the border to the EU was completely unacceptable and that humanitarian help was needed.
Lithuania calls for Belarus ‘no-fly zone’
Lithuania’s foreign minister has called for all Belarusian airports to be off-limits for airlines potentially carrying migrants and refugees.
It is also offering to help with repatriations from Belarus back to the Middle East.
“We need to make Minsk airport a no-fly zone,” Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters as he arrived for the EU foreign ministers’ meeting.
Belarus airline bans some nationals from arriving via UAE
Belarus’s state-run airline Belavia has announced that Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis and Afghans are banned from incoming flights from the United Arab Emirates at Dubai’s request.
In a statement to citizens of the four countries posted on its website, Belavia said they would not be allowed on flights from Dubai to Belarus “in accordance with the decision of competent authorities in the UAE”.