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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A grey Mercedes pulled up outside a flat in the Turkish border town of Edirne on Wednesday evening. Harem Mohammed, 41, along with his wife and their three children, aged 5, 9 and 12, climbed into the car. They were driven to a wooded area and dropped off.
A man guided the family through the wetlands until they reached the NATO bridge on the Maritsa (Meriç) River, known as the Evros in Greece, which forms part of the border between the two countries.
Early Tuesday morning, Mohammed filmed his wife and three children boarding an AJet VF374 flight from Sulaimani to Istanbul. The three children were smiling with glee at one another.
Photo of the family aboard the flight. Photo: Handout
The family had hoped to cross into Greece and continue their journey toward Germany, evading Turkish border patrol along the way. They had deposited $55,000 to be handed to the smuggler upon their arrival in Germany.
“There was a dinghy on the bank of the river and we inflated it,” Mohammed recalled.
Three other people were waiting to cross the river, which had swollen following heavy rain on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Mohammed's wife, Hozan Rostam, 37, was worried that the small dinghy, carrying eight people and a considerable amount of luggage, would not withstand the crossing.
Her fears were soon realized.
The dinghy capsized almost immediately after setting off, but the parents managed to pull their three children to safety.
Their eldest son, Hastyar was 12, followed by 9-year-old Haryad, and their youngest child, 5-year-old Mela.
Photo: Handout
Shaken by the experience, the parents protested that the crossing was too dangerous.
“We must go and cross or the Turkish police will arrest us,” a smuggler’s assistant by the name of Sarbaz told the frightened parents.
The two guides known as “Rebar” in Kurdish were working with a smuggler by the name of Rekan, originally from Erbil, who lived in Edirne. Despite their objections, the family boarded the dinghy a second time.
“We boarded the dinghy again and we had lots of luggage. We entered the water and the currents swept the dinghy, smashing it against a tree trunk, and capsized,” Mohammed recalled in an audio message shared with Rudaw English by migrant activist Ranj Pzhdary.
“I managed to rescue my wife; but the three children, God took them back like angels,” he said.
The powerful current swept the children away.
Hozan Rostam, speaking through tears in a separate phone conversation, recalled the terrifying moments as the dinghy overturned.
She said she closed her eyes and recited the Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith, believing that she and her family were about to die.
“My children drowned in front of my eyes,” she said.
Two of the children were swept away by the current and remain missing. The third was pulled from the river, but later died in a hospital in Edirne, according to Pzhdary.
The devastated parents are now hoping Turkish authorities can recover the bodies of their two missing children.
“My three children are gone, my home is upside down and destroyed,” Mohammed lamented. “I have one dead child in the hospital and the other two are missing.”
Harem Mohammed with his children. Photo: Handout
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency published photos showing the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) alongside gendarmes -military-status police teams - conducting joint search-and-rescue operations by air and water for the children on Thursday.
Prior to the tragedy, their mother, Hozan, recounted an uneasy feeling that something terrible might happen.
“The children kept asking me questions the night before, but I didn't dare answer them. Something did not feel right,” she recalled.
She appealed to the Kurdistan Regional Government to help recover her children's bodies.
“My daughter was so beautiful,” Hozan recalled, struggling to contain her grief.
“My God, destroy their [smugglers'] lives.”
The parents are currently being held at a police station in Edirne, where Mohammed said Turkish officers had treated them with compassion. “The police are very nice to us. They treat us with respect,” he said.
“All I want is to take their bodies back to Kurdistan and bury them there,” their mother said between sobs.
