Your trusted source

Turkish Airlines and FlyDubai could be banned in the EU for flying migrants to Belarus after an attack on the Polish border blew up into an international incident, the EU Observer reports. 

"The EU will ... explore how to sanction, including through blacklisting, third-country airlines that are active in human trafficking," EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday (8 November) after people tried to storm the Polish border earlier in the day.

The two top EU officials, Josep Borrell and Margaritis Schinas, will also travel to countries such as Armenia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to execute them to stop flights to Minsk, von der Leyen added.

Most of the “trade” is done by the Belarusian airline Belavia, which is already banned in the EU.

However, data from the airport in Minsk showed on Tuesday that the Turkish national airline Turkish Airlines, which is popular among tourists from the EU, still flies migrants from Istanbul to Minsk twice a day, despite the border crisis. FlyDubai, the Emirati cheap airline, and Syrian Cham Wings also brought in people.

Von der Leyen threatened after several hundred mostly Kurds tried to break through a razor wire fence near the ‘Kuźnica’ crossing on the border between Belarus and Poland.

Aerial footage posted on the Internet shows that they were forced to do so by armed Belarusian officers, some of them with assault dogs, and some allegedly shot into the air behind the crowd, including children.

Polish guards repelled potential asylum seekers using water cannons and pepper spray.

The migrants then set up a tent camp on the Belarusian side of the fence, while Polish soldiers and armored vehicles stood to the side. But Polish authorities have warned that further attacks are possible and that there are about 4,000 migrants in the 400-kilometer border zone.