BERLIN - A number of migrants have recently returned to the Kurdistan Region only weeks after they arrived in Germany and more are signing up for voluntary repatriation with the local authorities. "I prefer my own country to here. I have been here for five months, but nothing has been done for me," says Mohammed Mahmoud who recently arrived in Germany in search of a better life. "I intend to return and I insist. Even if there is no job... it is better than here." Many such new migrants as Mahmoud and some Iraqi Arabs have contacted the Iraqi embassy to obtain temporary travel documents that would allow them to return home. Most of them are residents of the Kurdistan Region. A majority of the new migrants came with the influx of Syrian refugees who flooded the gates of Europe last year. European authorities have imposed tough asylum laws and migrants and asylum seekers have to wait months in camps before a hearing on their case. "We are bored. They give us only 70-80 euros [per month]. We cannot afford clothes or anything else, but only food. We are forced to return, repent...repent," says Amir Khafaf, another Kurdish asylum seeker from Germany. Those intent on returning home have decided not to follow through with their asylum applications or seek the assistance of charity organization for subsistence. The Iraqi embassy does not provide a specific figure about the number of the returnees, but German officials have said that the voluntary return is more common among migrants from the Kurdistan Region. Hamid Majeed the owner of an airline travel agency in Berlin has helped many new arrivals get on the plane home. "I cannot provide an accurate data, but since the last October 50 migrants or so have come to us each month, seeking repatriation to the Kurdistan Region," Majeed told Rudaw. "On January 13 alone, 86 migrants voluntarily returned to Erbil through a direct Berlin-Erbil flight...they did not want to stay here." With its open door policy Germany received more than 1 million refugees and migrants last year but in recent weeks the authorities have passed new laws that would expedite the return of failed asylum seekers or those breaking the German law. Berlin has also made it clear that Syrian refugees are given the priority while others will be treated as economic migrants with slim chances of acceptance.
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