Refugees in Belorussia
Asylum in Nuclear Wasteland
The Belorussian dictator Lukashenko wants to settle refugees in areas which are nuclearly contaminated since the Chernobyl accident. The idea is to spur the economy there.
Minsk - When Sladria was seven years old, she lost here homeland. With here parents and seven siblings she fled from Afghanistan where there was war. The family wanted into the west. First they came to Kazakhstan then they headed to Europe. Their voyage ended in Belorussia. It belongs to Europe – geographically, but not politically. "We can't go to the west" says Sladira, today 17 years old. The borders into the new EU countries Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania are tight.
Sladira is working in a facility for migration childs in minsk. For little pocket money the girl and other children is embroiders table and pot cloths. Her parents have no time for her, both need to work to take care for the seven children. Sometimes, says Sladria, when here national caretaker isn't looking, there are people who insult her. Because of her skin colour. She isn't welcome here. The Belorussian state has here, in the capital, no place for foreigners.
It is the will of the Belorussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko that the 200.000 refugees will soon disappear from the cityscape of towns like Minsk, Brest and Grodno. Their new home shall be where not even the poorest Belorussians don't want to live.
80 miles away from Chernobyl
Lukashenko now wants to settle 22.000 immigrants into the region around Homyel. They can live in the places that have been left by the population. And they will quickly get Asylum, which formally gives them the same rights as Belorussians.
But the real reasons for the soft line in matters of international understanding is a different one: Homyel is just 80 miles north of Chernobyl and is considered the most contaminated area since the nuclear accident in 1986. The new settling politics of Lukashenko tries to turn the contaminated area into a economically prospering area.
Asylum in contaminated area
Radiation scientists are appalled by Lukashenko's newest coup: "This politics is medical nonsense" says Sebastian Pflugbeil, president of the German Society for Radiation Protection. Pflugbeil knows the area around Homyel. With other scientists he was committed in the area in the nineties.
Belorussia is the country that was mostly affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe. About 70 procent of the radioactive outfall, that came out of the reactor, was blown into Belorussia by winds. "For children in the Homyel area the risk to develop thyroid cancer if 55 times higher than average. For adults the risk is 5 to 6 times higher" says Pflugbeil.
The World Health Organization already now assumes that every third juvenile in the area that was not older than 4 years in 1986 will develop thyroid cancer in his life. Pflugbeil observed that in recent years more and more people settle in the area around Homyel. "The people move there to be left alone. And they can pick the best house from the abandoned houses." Especially poor veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Chechenya into the closed area. The new settling politics fits into this. "Lukashenko wants a closure of the Chernobyl catastrophe and he wants to use the area economically" Lukashenko especially wants to bring up agriculture again. Berries and mushrooms which absorb the radiation willingly prosper especially well. Plfugbeil criticises the attempts of the Belorussian government to downplay the radioactive risk. Radiation is reducing much slower than expected. "That's criminal" says the president of the Society for Radiation Protection.
Two Million Illegals are waiting
At first the Belorussian dictator Lukashenko wanted to waive through refugees like the family of Sladria directly into the EU. Afghans, Pakistanis, Vietnamese – in the eyes of Lukashenko criminal or equipped with nuclear weapons – he intended to go into the west. In the eyes of the dictator a chance for revenge that the EU to refuse to maintain politica relationships.
And then the EU prepared against the onrush from the east. According to a report by the German intelligence service of this year two million illegals are waiting in the "black triangle" of the region Moscow-Kiev-Minsk for their immigration into the west. In 2003 the EU made 400 million Eure available for the upgrade of the border patrol. A new agency for protecting the border was founded.
Belorussia plays a special role in the plans of the EU. According to the UNO organization UNHCR 40.000 people try to reach the west through Belorussia each year. With 700 miles the former Soviet republic has the longest border to the expanded EU. Therefore UNO and EU invested 5 million Euro into border patrol. Guard dogs and border posts are prepared as well as a new computer system for illegal immigrants.
For the refugees this is of little help: They can't go into the west. Other then in the contaminated Homyel they are not welcome. In the whole country foreigners are insulted and sometimes even beaten up. Radiation expert Plugbeil is sarcastic when he thinks at the refugee politics of Belorussia. "The area around homyel is quite lively" he says "as long as you don't have a Geiger counter."
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