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Displaced Iraqis caught in middle of EU-Belarus tensions

The Iraqi government is helping its displaced citizens stuck in Eastern Europe to return to Iraq.
Migrants are seen through a fence as they stand and sit by tents in a camp near the border town of Kapciamiestis, Lithuania, July 18, 2021.

Hundreds of Iraqi citizens are stuck in Lithuania and Belarus and are unable to go to Western Europe to seek asylum, in an unprecedented attempt to migrate to Europe.

As a result of this migration wave, the European Union (EU) pressured the Iraqi government to halt the travel of its citizens to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, for study and tourism. But Baghdad, which said that it “does not prevent its citizens from traveling,” stated that its citizens “were deceived.”

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