A boat carrying a group of migrants capsized in the Aegean on Sunday, killing nine Iraqi nationals. The four Kurds were originally from Tuz Khurmatu. They had fled to Turkey after Hashd al-Shaabi took over the town.
Hunar Rahad and his young son survived the wreck, but his wife and three other children were killed.
“We had no life in Tuz Khurmatu,” Rahad told Rudaw. “We lost everything.”
During the events of October 16, when Peshmerga forces withdrew from the disputed territories, Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitias forced Kurdish residents of Tuz Khurmatu to flee.
“Hashd al-Shaabi destroyed us,” Rahad lamented. “We fled to Sulaimani. There was no life in Sulaimani either.”
“We were compelled to come to Turkey and then to Greece.”
The treacherous waters, and inadequate smuggling vessel, however, destroyed his family.
“I do not know what to do,” Rahad said.
The fight against ISIS, financial woes, and political instability in Iraq has forced thousands of people to risk the dangerous water route to Europe.
Since 2017, dozens of Kurdish migrants have had their bodies repatriated to the Kurdistan Region through the Iraqi Migration Federation. Many others remained unaccounted for.
The federation’s representative in Turkey said the bodies will be taken from Izmir morgue and returned to Zakho on Monday.
