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Photo of Yazidi migrants stranded outside refugee camps in Serres, Greece, on September 1, 2022. Photo: Submitted
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A group of Yazidis from Shingal have been stranded outside refugee camps in Greece for nearly a week, as they are denied both entry into the camps and the right to return to their homeland by Greek authorities, according to one of the migrants.
“We are nearly 150 migrants from Shingal. For almost a week we have been sleeping outside camps in the city of Serres as they do not allow us to enter the camp,” Eido Khalaf, one of the migrants stuck in Greece, told Rudaw English on Thursday.
Greece is a key route used by refugees and migrants as an entry point into the European Union.
“There are over 20 empty caravans in the camps, but they do not allow us to enter as they say they are reserved for Ukrainians,” said Khalaf, claiming that they have reached out to the United Nations for help but were told that it was out of their control.
Scores of people, mainly youth, from across the Kurdistan Region and Iraq take to smuggling routes on a daily bases out of desperation, in hopes of escaping the endless crises in the country, including the lack of employment, political instability, and corruption.
The lack of job opportunities and security are the main reasons driving civilians to leave Shingal, according to Khalaf.
Murad Ismael, President of the Sinjar Academy, drew attention to the increasing rate of migration out of Shingal indicated by civilians selling their properties to afford the process. He advised the people not to sell their real estate, saying “this is the land of your ancestors and fathers, and you must keep it wherever you go.”
Sherzad Pirmusa, head of the Duhok-based Alind Organization for Youth Democratization, told Rudaw English that a total of 4,377 Yazidis have migrated out of Shingal and refugee camps in Duhok since the start of August.
Khalaf mentioned that at least two people from the group, a child and a teenage boy, had died along the way.
Over 90 people from the Kurdistan Region have died on migration routes in the past year, according to unofficial numbers from Pirmusa.
Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes in the summer of 2014 when the Islamic State (ISIS) seized control of their homeland, seeking shelter on Mount Shingal, and then in the Kurdistan Region with a limited number resettled in Europe and North America.
The killing of the Yazidis by ISIS has been recognized by several countries as genocide. During the first days of ISIS' campaign, around 1,293 people were killed and over 6,000 people were abducted, according to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Office for Rescuing Kidnapped Yazidis. Over 2,000 remain missing.
The bodies of three Kurdish migrants who drowned in the Greek coast were returned to the Kurdistan Region in July.
At least 16 migrants from the Kurdistan Region died in the English Channel in December, in what the International Organization for Migration (IOM) called the “worst disaster on record” since the body started recording data in 2014.
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