Yauhen Afnahel: Peak Of Deaths From Coronavirus In Belarus Will Come To End Of May

What elections are they talking about?

Despite the terrible situation with the coronavirus in Belarus, the authorities set the date of "presidential elections" for August 9. Instead of quarantine measures, recommended by the World Health Organization, Lukashenka only increases the number of mass events. On May 9, there was a parade in Minsk, where thousands of participants, driven from all over the country, were in the center of the capital without masks.

Is it possible to conduct an election campaign in such conditions? The Charter97.org website has asked Yauhen Afnahel, coordinator of the European Belarus civil campaign, for comments.

- In fact, Lukashenka has a phobia for "elections" and the decision to hold them during the epidemic is based on the expectation that the coronavirus will somehow help him to stay in power.

Today, when hundreds of thousands of people are infected all over the country, when the infection is spreading at an alarming rate, when the epidemic is still far from reaching its peak, there can be no talk about "elections". It is not possible to collect signatures, it is not possible to hold the campaign, because in this way we will be exposing people to danger, risking the lives and health of our supporters.

On the other hand, today all Belarusians understand that it is about the survival of the people. They understand that there is a specific perpetrator of the genocide against our citizens and his name is Lukashenka. It is he who refused to take measures to combat the spread of the epidemic in time, refused to introduce quarantine and showed with his statements that he is unhinged from reality, that he is in his own small world.

Today, the majority of Belarusians have other things to worry about rather than the "elections". The absolute majority of our country's residents are outraged by what is happening. The truth is being concealed, and people are boiling with indignation. We can see it from reports that we receive from all over the country, from the sentiments of common people who are far from politics.

Everyone understands that the Belarusian authorities are hiding the real number of deaths from COVID-19. According to bloggers, doctors, independent media, this figure is many times higher than the official data.

The Lukashenka propaganda likes to compare Belarus with Sweden. They say that no quarantine was introduced there either. However, despite the fact that all higher schools and gymnasiums are closed in Sweden, there are certain quarantine measures and people are informed about the danger every day, there are more than three thousand deaths from coronavirus in this country as of today. Given the level of medicine in Belarus, I think the number of deaths in our country is actually much higher than in Sweden.

Doctors say about more than 35 thousand people infected with coronavirus in Belarus. Medics admit that we have tests only in Minsk and partially in regional centers, while there is no such procedure in the districts. It turns out that based on these data alone, we can say that there are hundreds of thousands of infected with COVID-19 in the country.

According to the information from Staubtsy, Dokshytsy, Luninets, Pinsk, Beshankovichy, Vitsebsk and Baranavichy, one can imagine how many people die from coronavirus in Belarus.

I will repeat myself that this situation has a culprit. Most Belarusians know who has brought the country to disaster. Therefore, today we must talk about the trial of a man who has endangered the lives and health of our fellow citizens.

- You have compared the news from the regions about the coronavirus with "reports from the front zone". Does the situation with the epidemic in Belarus remind of war?

- Yes, it is a war. On one side - there is the Belarusian people, and on the other - Lukashenka and the coronavirus. This is, obviously, an allegory, but the dictator and the virus are acting together.

The Belarusians are resisting hard. We see just an unprecedented wave of solidarity and support of common people, addressed to the doctors. Minsk cafes and bars are offering free lunches. Volunteers are raising money to help doctors, buying masks, anti-plague suits, respirators, bringing food. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians are involved in the solidarity campaign. Someone buys necessary goods, someone helps with money, someone organizes everything. In my memory, it just has not happened. What does it say? The Belarusians are trying to fight back, self-organize and somehow manage to do it.

I would like to mention the work of mass media and independent bloggers. If it were not for them, the authorities would simply hide 100% of information, as it was at the very beginning of the epidemic. I think you remember the silence of the Ministry of Health, as well as its statistical riddles and puzzles. Only thanks to the efforts of independent journalists and bloggers, who disclosed lies, gave true information, it was possible to defeat the deception of the official authorities.

Yes, of course, the Ministry of Health and the authorities are still lying, but they are doing it worse and worse. Nowadays, it is very difficult to hide information. Common people, mass media, honest journalists and doctors report more and much better about the situation with the coronavirus than all the state media.

- How has the situation changed in Belarus because of the coronavirus epidemic?

- Today absolutely everyone is against Lukashenka - supporters of the alliance with Russia, supporters of independence, and those who said yesterday that they were not interested in politics. Belarusians are united by the disregard to lies, deceit and cynicism on the part of the authorities. Another factor that shows changes in the Belarusian society is solidarity of common Belarusians with doctors who are on the front line.

Coronavirus has had a great impact on Belarus. The country will never be the same again. We will never return to the situation that happened in January this year.

The epidemic has affected almost every family, because the infected and the deceased have friends, relatives, people close to them. After that, it is simply impossible to accept what official authorities and civil servants at the local level say. It's just a huge layer of people - the overwhelming majority of the country's population.

I would like to mention the opposition's actions during the Coronavirus epidemic. Leaders of the opposition supported the People's Quarantine initiative, which saved thousands of lives of Belarusians. If not for that, the situation would have been much worse. The People's Quarantine must continue and intensify. The most important thing for us today is to save the lives of our compatriots. The growth of the number of infected and dead must be stopped.

Everyone must understand that there is a person for whom lives are worthless. And he has shown it perfectly well in recent months. People have been driven to work at the Saturday clean-up days, bribed, blackmailed, threatened at the places of work and study in order to gather a crowd scene with doomed people who were risking their lives and health to entertain the dictator's vanity at the parade.

Easter and the Saturday cleanup days have already resulted in a spike in infections and deaths. Now we have to wait for a new spike from the parade and other Victory Day events. I think the peak of deaths from coronavirus in Belarus will be at the end of May.

Lukashenka has shown with all this that the lives of Belarusians are nothing to him. But the people's anger, which is now growing, will surely result in mass protests when the epidemic goes down. Our main task today is to save the lives and health of the maximum number of our compatriots, and tomorrow - to seek a trial against Lukashenka for the genocide of the Belarusian people.

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