Iraqi Chargé d’Affairs to Poland: Our Citizens Deceived by Smuggling and Human Trafficking Networks

The Chargé d’Affairs at the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Warsaw, Minister Plenipotentiary Hussein Mansour Al-Safi, has stressed that Iraqi citizens of asylum seekers have been deceived by smuggling and human trafficking networks and lost their money and now they need to have humanitarian care.

During his meeting with the Polish Undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, Mr. Bartosz Grudecki, at the Polish Ministry of Interior, Mr. Al-Safi has explained that Iraq is intensifying its efforts to educate its citizens to prevent the illegal immigration, in addition to suspending flights from Baghdad to Minsk, stressing that the government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Iraqi embassy in Warsaw are making significant efforts to solve the crisis of the flow of asylum seekers in cooperation with the receiving countries.

Mr. Al-Safi has suggested, during the meeting, to allow the asylum seekers who are stranded on the eastern border of Poland with Belarus and have a desire to return home voluntarily, to enter the Polish territory, and to provide facilities for the Iraqi embassy in Warsaw to meet them and take the consular procedures for their return.

on his part, Mr. Bartosz Grudecki has explained that the Polish side does not have accurate information of the number of Iraqi citizens stranded at the borders and in the forests due to the difficulty of reaching them and the presence of multiple nationalities, not only from the Iraqi nationality, and stressed the readiness to reach these citizens and secure contact with them by the embassy and the consular delegation, stressing the need to expedite procedures and continue the joint efforts to provide assistance to Iraqi asylum seekers stranded at the borders and in the forests, noting that Poland is seeking to build a fence to protect its borders not to be a transit point for illegal immigrants .