Khatun Seido, 26, drowned to death in the Aegean Sea on December 26. Photo: social media
DUHOK, Kurdistan Region — A community is in mourning after a Yazidi woman drowned to death in the Aegean Sea on December 26.
Khatun Seido, 26, and her two siblings, Sara and Dakhil, were heading from Turkey to Greece. The three siblings were en route to Germany to be reunited with their mother and five other, younger siblings, who migrated to Germany two years ago with UNHCR help.
“I took them to the Erbil International Airport and they flew to Istanbul, Turkey. They found [human trafficking] smugglers themselves in Turkey,” their uncle Kheri Qaed said.
At 5 am on December 26, Khatun, Sara and Dakhil got on a boat carrying a dozen other migrants, uncle Murad Qaed told Rudaw English on Wednesday. The boat, made of inner tube for tyres, was flimsy. It punctured when it hit a tree branch floating at sea. The boat capsized, killing Khatun.
Nahida Barakat, Khatun’s neighbor said Khatun had told her that she did not want to leave Duhok for overseas, “but that she had to, for her mother’s sake.”
Sara and Dakhil survived the capsize, and returned to Istanbul. The Turkish coastguard continues to search for Khatun’s body.
“My siblings wanted to reunite with my mom,” Khatun’s sister Sewa said. “I want you to bring back my sister’s dead body.”
Some 100,000 Yazidis have sought refuge overseas since the ethnoreligious minority was subject to genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014.
The Aegean Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, is a common but treacherous route to Europe for refugees and migrants from across Africa and Asia.
An estimated 19,000 refugees and migrants have died or are missing and presumed dead after trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the UN Migration Agency’s Missing Migrants Project data.
Reporting by Yousif Musa
Additional reporting, translation, and video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed
Khatun Seido, 26, and her two siblings, Sara and Dakhil, were heading from Turkey to Greece. The three siblings were en route to Germany to be reunited with their mother and five other, younger siblings, who migrated to Germany two years ago with UNHCR help.
“I took them to the Erbil International Airport and they flew to Istanbul, Turkey. They found [human trafficking] smugglers themselves in Turkey,” their uncle Kheri Qaed said.
At 5 am on December 26, Khatun, Sara and Dakhil got on a boat carrying a dozen other migrants, uncle Murad Qaed told Rudaw English on Wednesday. The boat, made of inner tube for tyres, was flimsy. It punctured when it hit a tree branch floating at sea. The boat capsized, killing Khatun.
Nahida Barakat, Khatun’s neighbor said Khatun had told her that she did not want to leave Duhok for overseas, “but that she had to, for her mother’s sake.”
Sara and Dakhil survived the capsize, and returned to Istanbul. The Turkish coastguard continues to search for Khatun’s body.
“My siblings wanted to reunite with my mom,” Khatun’s sister Sewa said. “I want you to bring back my sister’s dead body.”
Some 100,000 Yazidis have sought refuge overseas since the ethnoreligious minority was subject to genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014.
The Aegean Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, is a common but treacherous route to Europe for refugees and migrants from across Africa and Asia.
An estimated 19,000 refugees and migrants have died or are missing and presumed dead after trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the UN Migration Agency’s Missing Migrants Project data.
Reporting by Yousif Musa
Additional reporting, translation, and video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed
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