ERBIL — Poland has refuted Belarusian reports claiming that the country executed Iraqi refugees on the eastern EU borders last year.
"Today some media outlets in Iraq and the region published outrageous FAKE NEWS about the alleged crimes against Iraqis on the Polish-Belarussian border, citing Kremlin-affiliated RT," Consulate General of Poland in Erbil wrote on Twitter.
"Let's state the obvious: such claims are false & part of disinformation campaign against Poland," the consulate general added.
Last year, thousands of Iraqi and Kurdish nationals were among migrants from other Middle Eastern countries stuck in the border areas between Belarus and Poland while attempting to enter the EU in search for a better life.
Poland alongside its Western allies refused to allow the migrants to enter the European Union and said that they believed the migrants were being used as pawns in a political game by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to destabilize the EU in retaliation for its sanctions on his authoritarian regime.
Earlier today, Belarusian and Russian media outlets said that Belarusian authorities hosted an Iraqi delegation on June 21 to present them with new evidences proving that a number of Iraqi migrants had been executed by Polish border guards last year and that they buried them secretly in the border areas.
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday announced that it would begin an investigation into the Belarusian reports.
"We will investigate the reports which are shared with us by Minsk about the fate of the Iraqi refugees on the Polish borders," Ahmed al-Sahaf, a spokesperson for the ministry, said in a brief statement today.