Kurdish children, woman drowned in Greek waters to be returned home

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The bodies of three Kurdish migrants recovered from the Greek coast earlier this month will be returned to the Kurdistan Region on July 2, the representative of an organization working with refugees and displaced persons announced on Sunday.

The three Kurdish migrants are set to arrive in the homeland through Erbil International Airport on July 2 at 4:05 pm, said Hussein Hama Salih, the Greece representative of Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugees and Displaced Affairs. 

He confirmed the three migrants’ bodies as those of 32-year-old Ameera Othman, four-year-old Hanasa Hazhar, and seven-year-old Rezhwar Rebwar. Their bodies were identified on June 15. 

Greece is a key route used by refugees and migrants as an entry point into the European Union.

At least three separate migrant boats sank in the Aegean Sea late last year, leading to the drowning of at least 30 people, including Kurds, between December 21 and 25.

Othman, Hazhar and Rebwar drowned after their boat capsized on the night of December 21, according to Lutka. 

An 11-year-old boy who lost his entire family in the Aegean Sea was returned to his hometown of Koya in March. 

Salih in mid-June told Rudaw that the two children whose bodies will be returned next Saturday belonged to the same family, and they were from Koya town.

The Kurdistan Region saw a large exodus of its youth last year, when tens of thousands of mostly young Kurds left the Region and headed to Europe seeking a better life, using smuggling routes. A number of these migrants met their unfortunate end on the freezing Belarus-Poland border and others drowned at sea.

The bodies of 16 migrants who drowned in the deadliest migrant disaster in the English Channel were returned to the Kurdistan Region in late December, with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) describing the tragedy as the “worst disaster on record.” 

People, mostly youth, take the perilous journey away from the Kurdistan Region through smuggling routes trying to escape an ongoing crisis grasping the Region – with high unemployment, corruption, political instability, and a fragile economy influencing their decision to depart.

The Kurdish government has acknowledged the existence of systemic issues and financial hardships but has said it is working to address these problems.