Belarus has been accused of taking revenge for EU sanctions by offering migrants tourist visas, and helping them across its border. The BBC has tracked one group trying to reach Germany.
But while their motives - political instability at home, fear of conscription, lack of employment - are the familiar refrain of migrants the world over, the route they have taken is new. "It started as indications from the Belarusian government that they are ready to simplify visa proceedings… for 'tourists' from Iraq," Lithuania's Deputy Minister of Interior, Kestutis Lancinskas tells us.
Irbil is the bustling capital of the country's autonomous Kurdish region. A city of more than one-and-a-half million people, it's home to hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighbouring Syria, as well as other parts of Iraq.Not that you'd know that immediately. There are travel agents, to be sure. Lots of them. But this is a word of mouth business, with travel tips disseminated online in Facebook and chat groups.
For migrants now looking for safe passage via Minsk, Belarusian travel companies initially issued electronic invitations to allow people to board flights for the capital. When Idris and his friends reached the Belarusian capital Minsk, they found it teeming with migrants all beating the same path to Europe. Idris's footage from Minsk airport shows a crammed arrivals hall - passengers sprawled out across the floor waiting to be processed.
"We're crossing the borders illegally. We don't know what will happen. We can't trust anyone, not even our smuggler. We're putting our fate in God's hands." At Kybartai, in the west, more than 670 migrants have been moved to a converted prison. The authorities are trying to make it as habitable as possible. The warm cells are a definite improvement on the tented camps near the border where the migrants were being accommodated until recently.
But even though the detainees recognised they were pawns in a geopolitical tussle between Belarus and the EU, they mostly thanked Mr Lukashenko for giving them this chance.The flow of migrants into Lithuania has now been stemmed, thanks in part to the country's increased border security, assisted by the EU's border management agency, Frontex. But guards also showed us places where the border was still poorly protected, sometimes little more than a gap in the forest.
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