"First evacuation flights Minsk-Baghdad have begun,” Stanisław Żaryn, spokesman for Poland's security services chief, said in an English-language tweet on Tuesday.
"Many Iraqis want to come back from Belarus to their country," he added.
According to Żaryn, migrants are beginning to return because of “numerous unsuccessful attempts to cross a well-protected Polish border,” and “logistical problems” with “accommodation in Belarus.”
He added that “lowering temperatures” were another important reason for the departures.
Żaryn told Poland's PAP news agency that a few evacuation flights “do not signify a breakthrough” and it was difficult to predict what would happen next.
“We do not expect the migrant pressure to ease in the immediate future,” he said.
Żaryn added that the airlifts meant the migrants “are increasingly convinced the Belarus authorities are misleading them about there being an easy route to the West.”
Also, the flights show that "the Minsk regime is controlling the whole operation," he added.
“Those who want to return to Iraq are being presented with an opportunity to do so,” Żaryn said, as quoted by the Polish state news agency.
The airlifts, while limited so far, “must have been authorised by the Belarusian authorities,” Żaryn told PAP.
Poland and the Baltic states have accused Belarus's strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko of organising a wave of illegal migrants seeking to enter the European Union as part of what officials have called a "hybrid war."
Poland’s president on Tuesday greenlighted a government plan to build a wall on the country's border with Belarus in a bid to stave off an influx of migrants from the Middle East.
The EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, visited Poland in late September, agreeing with Warsaw’s arguments that “firm steps” were needed against Belarus, according to officials.
Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in October that his country enjoyed full support within the European Union as it worked to defend itself against a migrant influx and a "hybrid war" being waged by Belarus.
Late last month, Polish lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to extend a state of emergency in parts of two regions along the country's eastern border with Belarus by two months amid a growing migrant surge.
The state of emergency gives authorities broader powers to monitor and control the movement of people on the Polish-Belarusian border, which is also the eastern frontier of the European Union.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP