#forced-deportation

#forced-deportation

Dozens of political prisoners who were released by Belarus as part of a US-brokered deal this week were forcibly deported, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a leader of the Belarusian opposition, said Friday. Minsk freed 52 prisoners on Thursday as part of an agreement that was brokered by the United States, which will see sanctions on Belarus' national airline lifted. The prisoner release was announced after White House special envoy John Coale met with Belarus' longtime authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko in Minsk.

Last summer, Sonya*, aged 17 at the time, had endured more than two years of a difficult life under Russian occupation in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine. Her foster mother agreed that she needed a break. Growing up under forced assimilation had been scary, Sonya says, and her Russian-controlled school had offered to take her to a holiday camp in Crimea, a balmy peninsula once famed for being the spa of the Soviet Union.

Salana is certain she will be stoned to death if sent back to Afghanistan, as she says repeatedly to those asking about repatriation flights: 'I cannot go back.'