Body of Kurdish teen repatriated 17 months after deadly Mediterranean crossing

ERBIL. Kurdistan Region - The body of a Kurdish teenager who died when the boat he was in capsized off the shores of Italy 17 months ago was returned home to the Kurdistan Region city of Ranya on Saturday.

Hardi Karokh, 16, drowned on June 17, 2024 in one of two deadly shipwrecks in Italian waters that day.

“My son hoped to reach Europe so he could secure a better life for himself and for us. But unfortunately, God did not grant him the chance and their boat, carrying 76 migrants, capsized between Greece and Italy. Only 10 survived,” Hardi’s father Karokh Ismail told Rudaw correspondent Ranja Jamal.

Ismail said he searched extensively for his son’s remains and traveled to Italy on April 20, 2025, where he located the hospital that had conducted DNA testing on the victims of the shipwrecks.

“Through DNA testing, we were able to identify my son,” he said.

After locating his son’s grave, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative in Italy assisted in repatriating the body.

Seven Kurdish youths have died on migration routes this year and the bodies of three have been returned home, Bakir Ali, head of the Association of Returned Migrants from Europe, said during a press conference held as Hardi’s body arrived. Several more Kurds are missing.

“We call on the Kurdistan Regional Government, in coordination with Iraq, to take steps to reduce youth migration,” Ali said.

Tens of thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region take perilous routes out of the country towards Europe every year, searching for better lives far from the crises of unemployment, financial insecurity, political instability, and corruption.

According to the association’s statistics, since the beginning of this year more than 6,500 people have emigrated from the Kurdistan Region, around 1,500 of them from the Ranya area.