ALERT – COLLECTIVE DEPORTATION TO IRAQ SCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY, 29/04/2025

A collective deportation by secure flight to Iraq is planned for early Tuesday morning (4:25 a.m.) on 29 April 2025, involving at least ten Iraqi citizens currently held in detention centres in Belgium.

The flight is a military aircraft financed by the European agency Frontex, which will depart from Frankfurt Airport in Germany and stop in several other European countries to pick up other Iraqi nationals. This deportation from Frankfurt has been confirmed by the German collective NoBorderAssembly (via their Deportation Alarm project)¹. In Belgium, the people will be picked up from the Melsbroek military base (near Zaventem airport) and then taken to Baghdad.

Currently, around ten people of Iraqi origin detained in several closed centres in Belgium are involved. Some were already transferred on Sunday morning to the 127bis centre, located near the Melsbroek military base. At the Merksplas centre, we have been informed that several people have been placed in solitary confinement.

The other detainees who alerted us about the flight also inform us that returning these people to Iraq is dangerous for security reasons, given the ongoing conflicts and tensions in the country. The people in question are very worried: some have been living in Belgium for years and have their families and children here. We have also learned that one of the people threatened with deportation has just become a father and has only been able to see his newborn baby through a video call.

Deportation by military flight means that, throughout the flight, the deportees are escorted by Belgian police officers and there are no other passengers on board. Police violence is commonplace², and everything is done to force people to board the plane and remain calm during the flight. Any resistance is made impossible.

Deportations and the fear of deportation are part of everyday life for people detained in closed centres. We strongly oppose all deportations, which are violent acts committed by European states with the complicity of the countries of origin. These deportations take place in complete silence, with no oversight or control of the violence committed during them.

Our full support goes to the people threatened with deportation to Iraq on Tuesday, as well as to all other people locked up in detention centres and themselves under constant threat of deportation.