“We have received information that around 57 young Iraqi Kurds are in northern Syrian territory,” Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement, told Rudaw on Friday.
His ministry coordinated with Syria, Turkey, and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) “to take those immigrants out of Syria and bring them back to Iraq,” via Turkey, he said.
The group had hoped to reach the United Kingdom. They were told by a smuggler to identify as Syrians in order to avoid being sent home, but in Turkey they were detained and deported to Syria. They had been stranded in Azaz, northern Aleppo province since September 1. The area is under the control of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army.
According to data provided to Rudaw by Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugee and Displaced Affairs in June, at least 26,972 Iraqi citizens have sought asylum in Europe in 2021, and five people have lost their lives on the way.
A group of more than 140 Iraqi and Kurdish immigrants in Turkey sent a message to the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) in June saying they were forced to immigrate “due to the instability of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq in terms of security, politics and religion.”
Iraqi and Kurdish migrants similarly ran into trouble earlier this summer when smugglers promised them unrestricted travel into Western Europe on arrival in Belarus. Hundreds were stuck in camps in Lithuania, facing possible deportation home.
