Bodies of 2 Kurdish migrants arrive in Kurdistan

By Nechirvan Hussein

DOHUK, Kurdistan Region — The bodies of another two Kurdish migrants who died of suffocation inside an abandoned truck found in Parndorf, Austria in August arrived in Dohuk on Saturday.

Nashwan Mustafa and Samian Nasir had last spoken to their families on August 18 from Turkey, relatives told Rudaw.

The bodies of four other Kurdish asylum seekers, who Austrian police said had also died inside the truck, were returned to Erbil last week.

Seventy-one people—59 men, 8 women and 4 children—died inside the parked truck in eastern Austria on August 27. Police said the migrants had died of suffocation before entering Austria. Hungarian police announced later they had arrested the driver of the vehicle.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Representative to the European Union Dilawar Azhgayi told Rudaw 21 of the victims are believed to be from Kurdish areas in Iraq.

Hard economic times in the Kurdistan region, with the highest poverty and unemployment rates in a decade and pushed by the ISIS war and an influx of refugees, is believed to have triggered a new wave of migration to the West.

A joint KRG and World Bank survey showed that poverty rates have risen to 12 percent in 2015 from 3.5 percent two years ago. Unemployment has almost doubled to 12 percent this year from 6.3 percent in 2013, according to the KRG Office of Statistics.