SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – At least 16 bodies of Iraqi Kurdish migrants who drowned in November in the sinking of their boat while trying to cross the Channel were repatriated Sunday to Iraqi Kurdistan.
The tragedy, in which 27 migrants were killed on November 24, is the most serious involving candidates for illegal entry into Britain to ever occur in the Channel.
The plane carrying the bodies landed early Sunday at Erbil airport, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish Autonomous Region.
Ambulances then transported the coffins to the towns of origin of the deceased.
“The last time I heard my son’s voice was when he got on the boat. He said, ‘Don’t worry mum, I’m going to be in England soon. Now he’s from. back to me in a coffin, “said Shukriya Bakir, whose son drowned during the disaster.
(Ali Sultan report, written by Ahmed Rasheed, French version Jean-Michel Bélot)
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