Reuters told Iraqi pregnant women to continue migrating across the EU border

[ad_1]
© Reuters. Umm Malak, an Iraqi migrant who is 26 years and nine months pregnant, speaks to Reuters at the Bialystok (Poland) Migrant Center on 12 November 2021. Photo taken November 12, 2021. REUTERS / Marko Djurica
2/3
By Yara Abi Nader and Joanna Plucinska
BIALISTOK, Poland (Reuters) – Umm Malak, 26, who was about to give birth in weeks, was ready to go through the water in his chest, hiding in the cold woods with his three young daughters, hoping to make a better living in Germany.
The Iraqi woman said she did not regret her efforts, although she said she and her family had been taken away by border guards from Poland and Belarus six times in recent weeks.
“The future of my children, I have to think about this first, in Iraq, because there is no future, neither for us nor for them.”
A spokesman for the Polish Police said that the police had not carried out any activities such as returning the migrants to the border. Neither the Polish Border Guard nor the Belarussian authorities responded to requests for comment on his case.
Reuters was unable to verify his account independently.
Umm Malak, who refused to give his full name, is one of thousands of migrants trying to enter the European Union from Belarus since the spring, many of them Iraqis.
Reuters spoke to Bialysto in Poland at a migrant center in the city, staying with her husband and three daughters. The migrant center is open, which means migrants are free to come and go as soon as they meet all forty requirements for coronavirus.
Umm Mala said she was due to give birth in three weeks and hoped she would be in Germany.
The European Union accuses Minsk of creating a crisis as part of a “hybrid attack” on the bloc: distributing Belarusian visas in the Middle East, flying migrants and then encouraging them to cross the border illegally.
Belarus denies promoting the crisis, but said it could not help resolving sanctions if Europe did not lift sanctions.
Poland has detained some migrants in closed detention centers and taken others to open centers, especially those who are sick, elderly or have small children.
Umm Malak said she landed in Belarus in early October from Dubai and hoped to cross the Belarusian border, then travel to Germany by road with her daughters, all under the age of 10, and her husband. He said six attempts to cross into Poland had failed.
BUY IN A PURPLE
On several occasions, he said he was captured by Polish authorities and returned to the Belarusian border. In another attempt, he said they crossed into Lithuania, but were tired and returned.
In an attempt to enter Poland, Umm Malak said Belarusian authorities had helped him and his family cut through the border fence with Poland.
He then said he fell into a well near the border and became ill, having already been eight months pregnant. He was detained by Polish authorities for three days, then taken to a closed migrant center for a day, and then to an open one, he said.
“We fell into the well at noon and then at night … they (Polish border guards) got us. When they got us, I couldn’t be alone,” he said.
Some migrants from the open center in Bialystok told Reuters on condition of anonymity that they regretted their trip to Poland and said they were calling on their loved ones to return to the Middle East.
But Umm Malak said migrants, especially Iraqis like him, should still try to cross the EU border.
“I would recommend it to anyone who thinks about coming to it, because there is no future or security or anything in Iraq,” he said. “So endure the hardships of the trip for a month or two, a week or two, instead of continuing to suffer for years in Iraq.”
[ad_2]
Source link