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We were like a football,' Iraqi migrant says after Belarus odyssey
Yahoo ^ | 26 November 2021 | Yahoo

Posted on 11/26/2021 4:09:16 AM PST by Cronos

Sitting in a two-room apartment above his uncle’s office, 25-year-old Hussein Shumari said there wasn’t much left for him in Iraq. He had graduated from law school two years before but still had no job. He had lived through war and sectarian violence, b...

When he heard in September that Belarus — a potential pathway to Europe — was granting visas to Iraqis, he sold what few belongings he had, borrowed money from a friend of his uncle’s and handed $3,500 to a Baghdad travel agency. By the end of October, he was on a plane to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, and, he hoped, “a better life ... a good life.”

Instead, he found himself on the front lines of the latest skirmish between Belarus and its European neighbors. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a despot facing increasing international isolation, retaliated against the European Union by funneling thousands of migrants and refugees mostly from Iraq, Syria and Yemen to his country’s borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

On paper, young men such as Shumari shouldn’t be in the ranks of the migrant masses. With more than 143 billion barrels of oil, Iraq ranks fifth highest in proven oil reserves, representing about 9% of the world’s supply. But the scale of its riches is more than matched by a wildly corrupt political class that leaves most Iraqis all but destitute.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; Russia
KEYWORDS:
"At dawn, a pair of Belarusian soldiers roused the migrants and escorted them through swampland with water up to their knees until they reached a spot where a 12-foot-wide river separated the two countries. A third soldier kept a lookout. The migrants were forced to use an inflated inner tube to cross the waterway.

Once on the other side, Shumari and the others trudged through forest but soon found themselves surrounded by trained dogs whose barking alerted nearby Polish soldiers, who rounded up the migrants, confiscated their phones and drove them in trucks to the river on the border.

“They didn’t care how cold it was. They just pointed at the river and said, ‘Swim,’” Shumari said, adding that by the time he walked out of the water he was shivering so hard he thought his teeth would break.

The moment they were back in Belarusian territory, Shumari said, they were caught again, pushed to Grodno and made to repeat the journey once more."

1 posted on 11/26/2021 4:09:16 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Cronos

Maybe these strong, young men would be better making their own country better instead of invading others searching for something they will actually steal from others to make their own lives better?


2 posted on 11/26/2021 4:16:48 AM PST by Cowgirl of Justice
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To: Cronos

The irony is that someday we, our kids and grandkids may have to leave this country. But I still feel that as long as I have the strength in my trigger finger, I’m staying.


3 posted on 11/26/2021 4:23:28 AM PST by HighSierra5 (The only way you know a commie is lying is when they open their pieholes.p)
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To: Cronos

On paper, young men such as Shumari shouldn’t be in the ranks of the migrant masses.

But yet there he is...expecting to win the migrant lottery of free everything at the expense of working people.
I don’t know who is more disgusting: him or the Euroelites who demand he be accommodated.


4 posted on 11/26/2021 4:26:12 AM PST by Adder (Proud member of the FJB/LGB community.)
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To: Cowgirl of Justice

I’ll play the Devil’s advocate on this. Our ancestors left Europe to find a better life and worship freely. If they had stayed to change the order they might have done it. Maybe not. It’s the instinct of all normal people to have a better life.


5 posted on 11/26/2021 4:58:02 AM PST by HighSierra5 (The only way you know a commie is lying is when they open their pieholes.p)
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To: Cronos

So why not apply for immigration to start with and just go through the process to whatever country they want to go to?


6 posted on 11/26/2021 5:30:05 AM PST by caww ( )
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To: caww

They want to go to Germany.

They are most likely unskilled. I know of skilled Iraqi engineers who are in Germany and they went there legally.

These folks would not be accepted for legal immigration due go lack of skills


7 posted on 11/26/2021 6:33:14 AM PST by Cronos ( One cannot desire freedom from the Cross, especially when one is especially chosen for the cross)
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To: Cronos

I just can’t help but thinking Lukashenko has done Europe a very big, long-term favor.


8 posted on 11/26/2021 7:06:19 AM PST by PGR88
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To: HighSierra5

The difference is they left at great risk knowing they were wholly dependent on God and their abilities to work to survive where there were none of the comforts and securities that they left behind. They left not knowing if they would even survive the journey.

They left knowing they’d be starting from scratch with no help from anyone. They did not leave for a land of prosperity, but then a land of nothing. Nothing but hard work, risk - and opportunity and freedom.

Huge difference.


9 posted on 11/26/2021 7:58:06 AM PST by Arlis
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To: HighSierra5

My grandparents immigrated LEGALLY from Sicily and supported themselves when they got here.

We have millions of welfare recipients who are going to collapse our country as they come here for us to pay to feed, shelter and clothe them.


10 posted on 11/26/2021 10:54:46 AM PST by Cowgirl of Justice
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To: PGR88

He has. In Poland it has given PiS a lease on life


11 posted on 11/26/2021 12:27:08 PM PST by Cronos ( One cannot desire freedom from the Cross, especially when one is especially chosen for the cross)
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