Unemployment, poverty drive migration from Iran’s Sardasht: MP

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Unemployment and poverty are driving migration of hundreds of youths from the Kurdish-Iranian city of Sardasht, an Iranian lawmaker said on Saturday, four days after a family of five from the area drowned trying to cross the English Channel.

"The only way for the youth and the people of Sardasht to be employed and earn a living is the borders that exist in this city, including the borders of Kileh, Qasem Rash and Ashkan," said member of parliament Kamal Hosseinpour in an interview with Tasnim News Agency.

In the last four months, "more than one thousand people" have moved out of Sardasht, according to Hosseinpour.

Iran’s Kurdish regions, including Sardasht in West Azerbaijan province, have historically been deprived of investment and have some of the highest unemployment rates in the country. The situation has been made worse by closures of unofficial border crossings with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in a bid to crack down on smuggling, and restrictions of movement at official border posts during the coronavirus pandemic, throwing many people out of work while Iran’s economy is crippled by American sanctions.

Rasul Iran Nejad, a labourer, left Sardasht in May with his wife Shiva Mohammad Panahi, and their three young children to travel thousands of kilometres in search of a better life in the United Kingdom. They died this week when their boat capsized in the English Channel. Three hundred of some 500 migrants living in a rough tent city in France’s Calais are from Sardasht, according to one of the migrants who survived the boat disaster.

The migrants in Calais’ Jungle encampment include young Kurdish men who tried to make a living as kolbars. Around 70,000 kolbars carry untaxed goods on their backs from the Kurdistan Region into Iran to make a living for their families. Four kolbars were shot at, three fatally, by Iranian border guards in early September. Hundreds are killed or wounded every year at the hands of Iranian border guards and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The MP Hosseinpour said there are few options for expanding the local economy. "Unfortunately, there are no industrial factories in this city and its topography is such that agricultural activities are not possible in it,” he said, adding that formalizing the borders is the only way to secure employment. But that will require an agreement with Baghdad.

"The answer given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our country regarding the formalization of the Sardasht border was that the Iraqi government and parliament do not agree with the formalization of this border, so a solution must be found for this concern of the people of Sardasht,” said Hosseinpour.

Unemployment, poverty drive migration from Iran’s Sardasht: MP

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