German police find 31 Iraqi migrants in a pickup truck

Source: Unknown

German police discovered and arrested 31 Iraqi immigrants in a pick-up truck near the German-Polish border in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

The migrants, 19 men, 2 women and 10 children, were not in good health.

The police reported that the children were wearing wet, worn-out shoes and their feet were wrapped in aluminum foil and that they sustained injuries as a result.

The refugees were taken to Pasvalk police station, according to police statements.

The Polish truck had crossed the border in Blankensee in the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald and was stopped by the Federal Police in the town of Bük on Saturday morning.

The 34-year-old truck driver was detained.

While searching the Polish smuggler, police found a large one-handed knife and a storm hood that he wore as camouflage.

Migrants have been trying very hard to reach the European Union via Belarus for months. Hundreds of Iraqis have reportedly flown in to Minsk from Iraq on tourist visas in the hope of crossing the country’s border with Lithuania, and thus making it into the European Union (EU) bloc.

They also used the route through Poland to Germany.

The Polish border guards reported that last September, 7,535 attempts to cross the Belarusian-Polish border were recorded illegally, while this number had reached only 120 attempts in 2020.

The governments of Germany and Poland accuse the governor of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, of moving refugees from crisis areas to the external borders of the European Union in an orderly manner.

Lukashenko announced at the end of last May that he would not stop migrants from continuing to travel to the European Union – as a response to tough Western sanctions against the former Soviet republic.



PUKmedia