Free Republic

Belarus has trucked Afghan migrants to the Polish border and forced them to cross at gunpoint as strongman dictator Alexander Lukashenko plays a 'dirty game' to destabilise the EU. Record numbers of refugees have been pouring across the 420-mile EU frontier with Belarus, which includes Latvia and Lithuania, since Brussels imposed sanctions on Minsk in June. Belarus is accused of keeping the migrants in prison-like hotels before driving them to the border as part of a Kremlin-backed 'hybrid war' to weaken the 27-state bloc,,,

When Mari Ayubi took her five young children and fled her homeland of Afghanistan, she thought her husband was dead. Now, sitting next to him in Christchurch after seven years apart, she still cannot believe he is there. "God has given us a new life," Mari Ayubi beams. Her daughter, Madina, 12, said the whole family was pinching themselves. "We didn't think we were going to see Dad again. When he came, the first night we thought we were dreaming. When we woke up the next morning, we saw it was true." The disbelief is wearing off, but the joy...