For Syrians in Lebanon, anxious to flee the long arm of the Assad regime, Facebook is a promising portal to freedom in Europe.
Join 22,000 others in the Facebook group “The Friends Travel to Belarus” and you soon learn what you need to get to Minsk from Beirut: at least US$3,000 in cash, and nerves of steel.
As legal routes to Europe dry up, many of the estimated 800,000 Syrians in neighbouring Lebanon are accepting an offer they can’t refuse from Belarus.
Would-be migrants in the Facebook group are directed to three travel agencies in Dbayeh, a 25-minute drive north of Beirut city centre. The agencies offer direct flights from Beirut to Minsk three times a week with the state-owned Belavia Air. Other Facebook users recommend going directly to the nearby Belarus honorary consulate.
One Facebook user, who calls himself Ali, went through the consul and says the application process for his trip to Belarus took more than two weeks.
Now in Germany, the 24-year-old Syrian man doesn’t say when he left Beirut or how he got through Poland. He says he paid the consulate $1,500 for a visa, letter of invitation, hotel and airport transfer – and another €1,300 for the flight.
After building throughout summer, so many people were taking the “Belarus route” by September that Poland declared a state of emergency in two border regions and sealed much of the 400km border with barbed wire.
Destination Germany
The goal of many migrants is Germany, where an estimated 6,000 have been detained in the last six weeks.
Berlin has accused Minsk of “state-sponsored human trafficking” and is pushing for increased sanctions against Minsk and airlines transporting migrants.
As well as Belavia, German security services say Russian airline Aeroflot and Turkish Airlines, both partly state-owned, are carrying large numbers of migrants. A year ago the two airlines had 17 flights a week to the Middle East; now they are operating nearly 60 flights to Damascus, Beirut, Erbil in northern Iraq and other airports.
Other charter airlines, including one owned by a cousin of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, are said to be operating flights to Belarus that are not listed publicly.
German and Polish security services have warned that, among the migrants, Belarus is also bringing to the border Afghan and Iraqi men who have been given combat training in military camps near Minsk.
After clashes at the border on Monday and Tuesday, officials in Warsaw say they are braced for an “escalation” soon.