“We definitely don’t want to go to Iraq and stay until we are allowed into the EU,” 25-year-old Gashtjar told dpa on Tuesday, without giving their last name.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry in Minsk said another 118 migrants had left voluntarily and had returned home.

The migrants are mainly Iraqi Kurds and Syrians. Some of them speak German or have family in Germany, but could not obtain visas recently because of the pandemic.

The majority insist on being accepted in the EU, said Alexei Begun, head of the migration department of the Belarusian Interior Ministry, according to state news agency Belta.

No one has applied for refugee status in Belarus, he said. “They also reject all proposals of return to their home countries.”

The fate of those in question is being determined in cooperation with international refugee organisations. The goal is repatriation, Begun said.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko had called for a humanitarian corridor for 2,000 migrants to the EU. Brussels accuses him of deliberately luring the migrants into the country and to the border with Poland in order to destabilize the bloc.

Lukashenko, who is considered “Europe’s last dictator,” has repeatedly stressed that in retaliation for the EU sanctions against Belarus, he will no longer stop anyone crossing Belarusian territory to reach the EU.