SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – At least 16 bodies of Iraqi Kurdish migrants who drowned in November when their dinghy deflated whereas they tried to cross the English Channel have been returned on Sunday to Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Nov. 24 catastrophe, in which 27 migrants died, was the worst on report involving migrants making an attempt to cross the Channel to Britain from France.
The airplane carrying the bodies landed on early Sunday in the airport of Erbil, capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish area. Ambulances then took the coffins to the house cities of those that died.
“The final time I heard my son’s voice was when he received on board the boat. He stated ‘Don’t fear Mum, I’ll reach England shortly.’ Now he is again to me in a coffin,” stated Shukriya Bakir, whose son was one of those that drowned.
In the previous decade, a whole lot of hundreds of individuals have slipped into the rich economies of Western Europe with the assistance of smugglers, fleeing battle, persecution and poverty on epic journeys from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan and elsewhere. Few are welcomed.
Iraq is not at conflict because the defeat of Islamic State in 2017. But a lack of alternatives and primary providers, in addition to a political system most Iraqis say is corrupt and nepotistic, imply many individuals see little probability of a first rate life at house.
(Reporting by Ali Sultan; Writing by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Peter Graff)
