ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Musa Ali had just settled back into his dormitory at Sulaimani Polytechnic University after a day of dodging rubber bullets and avoiding tear gas fired by Kurdish security forces at several thousand students protesting government austerity measures, when he received a voice message. “Son, come back home quickly,” Musa’s mum urged him. “I kind of knew something must have happened to my cousin,” said Musa. Late last month, Musa’s 25-year-old cousin Baxtyar Anwar travelled to Belarus to try his luck at reaching Germany. The family had not heard from him for four days and a photo was circulating on social media of a young man, lying on his back, frozen to death. “In my heart, I knew it was Baxtyar when I heard my mum’s voice,” Musa said about his cousin with whom he was particularly close. Baxtyar had been on the journey for almost a month. He survived freezing temperatures and tear gas fired at him and other migrants on the Belarus-Poland border. He managed to arrive in Germany in the early hours of Tuesday morning, but his body could not take it anymore and gave up. “My dear friend, I can’t believe that you have left us without saying farewell… I don’t know what to say,” Dlshad Muhamad said in a tribute on Facebook. “My childhood friend has passed away in this way. Only god knows the depth of my sorrow. You were a kind-hearted person.” Baxtyar lived a life of displacement and died a lonely death somewhere in Germany. He was born in 1996 in Altash camp, which was built by the Saddam Hussein regime for Iranian Kurdish refugees near Ramadi in central Iraq. His family had fled areas of Iran bordering Halabja during the 1979 Iranian revolution and became refugees near Sulaimani. After two years, the family was moved to central Iraq to live in Altash. This summer, Baxtyar joined hundreds of young Iraqi Kurds making the journey to Belarus with the help of Kurdish smugglers. While the path towards Europe via Belarus has been trodden over the past few years, the Belarusian government made it easy around June this year for migrants to reach the Polish border, the frontier of the European Union. Many managed to get through, but others have been stuck at the border between Polish and Belarusian forces, fenced in with no food or water and fearing for their lives as the temperature dropped. Human Rights Watch accused both Warsaw and Minsk of perpetrating serious human rights violations against migrants and asylum seekers. “While Belarus manufactured this situation without regard for the human consequences, Poland shares responsibility for the acute suffering in the border area,” said Lydia Gall, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Men, women, and children have been ping-ponged across the border for days or weeks in freezing weather, desperately needing humanitarian assistance that is being blocked on both sides.” Baxtyar’s family returned to the Kurdistan Region in 2005 after Saddam Hussein was removed from power. Only small number of the Iranian Kurds from Altash camp was resettled in third countries. Most have lived lives of poverty, settling in tents in Barika camp near Sulaimani, home to 700 families. As Iraq descended into communal and sectarian violence, Arab Sunnis flooded the province and some settled in Barika. They were followed by Syrian Kurds when their country descended into civil war in 2011 and terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) emerged. Baxtyar finished high school and hoped to study computer science at university but he did not get a spot as his grades were not high enough. “He was very close to me and we would talk all the time,” his cousin Musa told Rudaw English. “After high school, he did all kind of manual work - pushed a cart and worked in a mobile phone shop.” His last job was selling sharbat, a sweetened fruit juice. The family was destitute. Baxtyar’s older brother had travelled to Denmark illegally six years earlier, hoping to change the family’s luck by sending back money. “He has no status in Denmark and can’t work, and therefore can’t be of any help to his family,” Musa said. Baxtyar was good at computing and he has close to 10,000 followers on Facebook. What pained him most was his family’s poverty. “There were two things that pushed him to go - his family’s poverty and second hoping to study computing in Europe,” Musa said. “Studying computing was his ultimate dream.” He was one of seven children and did not smoke cigarettes or shisha, a habit that is becoming wildly popular in Kurdistan. He was well-respected and appears to have had a strong social circle. In photos shared by his friends on social media, Baxtyar, a handsome young man, is seen smiling, picnicking, having a good time and being happy. In September, Baxtyar started looking for a smuggler. “There are many smugglers but I would say there are only three in Kurdistan who are trustworthy,” Musa said. Asked if Baxtyar managed to find a trustworthy smuggler, Musa responded, “If the smuggler was good, this would not be Baxtyar’s fate.” Human traffickers have always had business in the Kurdistan Region. Since the 1990s, tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds have travelled to Europe or North America in search of better lives or fleeing political persecution. Finding a smuggler is an easy task, but the route through Belarus is a relatively new path. Most Kurds hoping to reach Europe would travel via Turkey and Greece until this summer when the direction of migration moved to the north. “There were a limited number of people that would go to Belarus last year and the year before,” said a civilian source familiar with human trafficking in Kurdistan. “This year, however, the Belarusian government made it easy for people to go there.” In 2020, Belarus held a disputed presidential election and the EU imposed sanctions on the government, action that Minsk chose to protest by welcoming transiting migrants. Smugglers were quick in reacting to the events. “Last year or the year before Kurds who wanted to go to the Polish border were beaten by Belarusian security forces, but this year the situation changed completely,” the civilian source, who is not a smuggler, told Rudaw English. Smugglers work as a network in the Kurdistan Region and the news filtered back quickly that the Belarusian government was turning a blind eye and in some instances helping people get to the border. More and more people left Kurdistan Region, joined by others from Syria, Iran, Yemen, and beyond. “Five of my close friends have left in recent months,” said Musa. “Many more people are planning to go.” Asked if he would join the exodus, Musa responded “Of course, without a doubt.” Baxtyar tried his luck in September but did not make it through. He was flown back to Sulaimani in October, determined to try again. “I think he paid around $8,000,” Musa said referring to Baxtyar’s second attempt in early November. Once in Belarus, Baxtyar was stuck in the city of Minsk. He recorded a video and sent it to Kurdish migration activist Ranj Peshdari on November 13, describing the desperate state of migrants living out in the open in freezing temperatures. Peshdari has worked on the plight of Kurdish migrants for almost a decade and has come into contact with many on their way to Europe. “He called me the following day and said he was going to the border area and I did not talk to him again,” Peshdari told Rudaw English from Poland. Baxtyar did send two voice messages via Viber to Peshdari explaining the situation on the border. As the world media descended on the Belarus-Poland frontier, scenes reached the Kurdistan Region of Kurdish migrants crying on the border, cutting trees to keep warm in the bitter cold. Musa said he was not worried about his cousin living in those harsh conditions. “If you come and look at our situation in the camp, you would realize the situation is not that different to the Belarus border.” Sometime after sending the video on November 13, Baxtyar managed to reach the border where he was confronted with scenes of devastation. Around this time, his health began to deteriorate due to exposure to the elements. As Poland stood its ground, refusing to let any migrant across, many people became desperate to go back to Minsk, but they were prevented by Belarusian security forces. Some ended up paying up to $2,000 dollars to travel the 250 kilometres to Minsk. “The smugglers were also making hefty money on the backs of the desperate migrants trying to flee the terrible conditions in the border area,” said the source familiar with the situation through his intermediaries based in Erbil. Baxtyar’s situation was becoming critical, but he had a patchy internet connection and his family grew more concerned. “He called me four days ago and said ‘dad please deposit the money for the smuggler,’” Anwar Mohammad, Baxtyar’s father, told Rudaw English over the phone from Barika camp. “His voice was different and I questioned if it was him. There was a code word between us and he said it, so I realized it was him.” Anwar knew that his son was in poor health, but being more than 3,000 kilometres away, he felt powerless. After the smuggler was paid, Baxtyar managed to get through the border barriers and arrived in Germany in the early hours of Tuesday morning, his father said. Peshdari, the activist, said that when a group of 12 including Baxtyar arrived in Germany, Baxtyar’s health had utterly deteriorated. “The group did not know what to do,” said Peshdari, who had spoken to some of the migrants travelling together. Some of them fled when Baxtyar died, but five stayed with him and called the police. As Baxtyar arrived in Germany, back in the country where he was born and grew up, his cousin and thousands of other university students were pouring into the streets of Sulaimani, condemning corruption and calling for better living conditions, the type of conditions that had driven hundreds of Kurdish youth onto the dangerous migrant trail to Europe. His father, holding a mourning ceremony in Barika camp, broke down twice while speaking. He said they are trying to bring his son’s body back to bury him near the camp. On Kurdish social media, tributes are pouring in. “Dear Baxtyar, please rise up again. You have finally fulfilled your dream to be saved from this blighted land,” Sarawan Azim wrote on Tuesday night on Facebook, posting a photo of the two friends. “I am heartbroken. It feels like a dream but there is no one to wake me up.”
