The EU Security Council member states, joined by the United States, said they “condemn the orchestrated instrumentalisation of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus,” in a joint statement issued after a council meeting.
Nearly 8,000 Kurds are among thousands of migrants stuck in a standoff between Belarus and Poland at the border, enduring the cold and harsh conditions in the hopes of making it to western Europe. Poland has boosted security on the border and EU governments have accused Minsk of using the migrants as a pressure card to ease sanctions that were imposed after protests were met with violence after 2020 elections.
The EU Security Council nations called on Minsk to stop putting lives at risk, saying, “The Belarusian authorities should understand that putting pressure on the European Union in this way, through a cynical instrumentalisation of migrants, will not succeed.”
They also called for humanitarian aid organizations to be given immediate access to the border and for governments in the migrants’ countries of origin to help stop their nationals from traveling to Belarus.
Related: Despair at home sends Kurds to Belarus-Poland border
Ahead of the Security Council meeting, Russia called it a “disgrace” that the EU nations were looking to the UN to solve the matter. “When our European friends raise issues like this, they only expose their double standards and their faulty tackling of this crisis,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy representative to the UN, told reporters.
“One should be mindful of the reason why these people are fleeing their home countries, who was responsible for this crisis and what countries destroyed these people’s homeland,” he said.
Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei, in an interview on Wednesday, said the migrant crisis is not his country's fault. "This is the result of the EU's thoughtless policy that led to destruction of their [the migrants'] native countries," he said.
At least eight people have died on the border, according to Human Rights Watch, which has called for a humane response to a humanitarian crisis, rather than beefing up border security. “While the European Union and its member states are focused on war talk, states of emergency, and barbed wire fences, the acute suffering of the women, men, and children trapped in limbo at the border is being ignored,” the watchdog’s senior researcher in Eastern Europe Lydia Gall wrote on Friday.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN secretary-general, this week said “people should not be used as pawns, especially the most vulnerable. If there are political differences they need to be resolved between countries or between groups of countries.”
In a bid to prevent migrants entering Belarus, on Friday Turkey's civil aviation authority announced that "citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen who want to travel to Belarus from Turkish airports will not be allowed to buy tickets and boarding until further notice."
In August, Iraq agreed to temporarily suspend flights from Baghdad to Minsk.
Additional reporting by Majeed Gly
Updated at 1:10 pm
