ReportingWithout a future, the candidates for exile left in large numbers this autonomous region located in the north-east of Iraq and tried to reach Europe, often risking their lives.
On Muhammed Fatah Muhammed’s Instagram profile, a sentence is written in English: “Better days are coming. “ Far, no doubt, from the city center of Halabja, a Kurdish town in the north-east of Iraq, where this 23-year-old young man with a gentle look, a thin, bearded face, works in a small restaurant. “From 5 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., he specifies. And, at best, I earn 6 euros per day. ” Today, like many other young people, Muhammed has only one dream: to leave Iraqi Kurdistan for Europe, where already lives ” one hundred “ of his friends and acquaintances. Every day, others continue to leave, often risking their lives. Thousands of migrants stranded at the border between Belarus and Poland came from the same autonomous region in northern Iraq. On December 26 again, the bodies of sixteen Kurdish migrants, drowned in the English Channel a month earlier, while trying to reach England, were repatriated to Erbil.
Among Muhammed’s friends, many have taken the roads of exile. “In the UK there is one who now works as a hairdresser. He managed to buy a house for his parents here in Halabja. He also paid for his brother’s wedding. I would like to do the same! “, slips the young Kurd.
Muhammed however knows how the path is strewn with pitfalls. In 2016, a migrant boat crossing the sea to arrive in Italy from Greece sank, killing nineteen members of his family, on his mother’s side. “Only my mother’s aunt remained alive. She then left for the Netherlands before returning here, where she died a short time ago ”, explains the young man. Already in 2018, he himself tried his luck. Forty days on the road, 4,300 dollars spent (3,800 euros) of his savings to pay smugglers, several countries crossed and a sea crossed, before he finally finds himself in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Three times, Muhammed then attempted a new crossing to Italy. The last time, he says, the police arrested him after they beat him up. The young Kurd then decided to turn around. “But I will do the same again, maybe by the spring. I want to go to any country, to get rid of Kurdistan, to save myself from here. Life is hard. There is no job. I will sell the car I just bought ”, he assures.
Dead end crisis
According to figures from the United Nations (UN), the unemployment rate for Kurds aged 15 to 29 is 24% for men and 69% for women. In this region, economic growth is far from keeping pace with population growth. Each year, to absorb the arrival of young people in the labor market, some 50,000 new jobs are needed. in the region, says the UN.
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