France’s Air France, Finland’s Finnair and Singapore Airlines today became the latest airlines to suspend flights over Belarus.

Air France issued a statement saying it had `taken note` of the conclusions of the European Union (EU) summit and suspended flights over Belarus `until further notice`.

Singapore Airlines also rerouted flights `to Europe to avoid Belarusian airspace` and will continue to `closely monitor the situation`.

An aircraft of the French airline Air France.

Finnair said the flight affected by the rerouting decision was a flight to the Turkish coastal town of Gazipasa on April 25.

The decision was made a day after EU leaders called on airlines based in the EU to avoid Belarusian airspace and banned the country’s airlines from entering the airspace of the bloc’s 27 countries.

Scandinavia Airlines, Germany’s Lufthansa and Latvia-based Air Baltic airline also made similar announcements on May 24.

Western leaders accused Belarusian authorities of `hijacking a European plane`, while Minsk claimed they responded to ensure the safety of the flight after receiving a bomb warning.

US President Joe Biden strongly condemned Belarus’s arrest of opposition journalist Protasevich, calling it `a disregard for international practices`.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile said the actions of the Belarusian government were `unprecedented` and `unbelievable`.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Belarus’ arrest of journalist Protasevich should not be `hastily assessed and must be based on available information`.

Protasevich, 26 years old, used to work for Polish news agency Nexta and broadcast many images of protests against President Lukashenko last year via the Telegram application.

Protests in Belarus lasted more than 6 weeks in the middle of last year after Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years, announced his re-election with more than 80% of the vote.

Ryanair’s plane was forced to change direction when it was about to fly into Litav airspace on May 23.