Refugee rights group calls for peace and comfort for Iraqis and Kurds

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish and Iraqi refugees face threats and racism in camps across Europe, a Britain-based refugee rights group said on Sunday, calling on United Nations (UN) to restore peace and comfort into their lives, as more refugees and displaced people (IDPs) crowd into shelters in the Kurdistan Region.

“European countries are in a huge crisis and their immigrant policies change day by day, especially after right-wing governments and after Brexit, the exit of Britain of the UK,” Dashty Jamal, Secretary of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR) told Rudaw on Sunday.

“First thing they did was close the borders on the immigrants, keeping them in camps and hostels in very bad conditions, along with threats of racism in those countries, keeping them for months, even years for an answer, as well as cutting them off of all the services that immigrants should have, meaning depriving them of all the rights immigrants should have in Europe,” added Jamal.

He noted that in the past eight months, there have been over 500 immigrants from the Kurdistan Region who have contacted their federation seeking asylum in the UK. 

"The majority of these asylum seekers came to Britain since they were refused asylum in other countries in Europe."

Many Britons wanted control over their immigration laws back from Brussels. A goal of the Brexit referendum was to address this grievance. Right-wing groups demanded the deportation of asylum seekers and immigrants.

Immigrants are forced to take to dangerous and illegal roads of the Balkans, traveling over unpredictable seas as these countries have made the situation increasingly difficult on them at borders due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Recently the body of a one-year-old Kurdish boy who drowned in the English Channel last October was found more than 900 kilometers away in Norway. Trying to reach the UK, he and his family made the perilous journey from Iran's Sardasht area to the port of Calais in France.

More than 140 Iraqi and Kurdish immigrants directed a message to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) through IFIR from Turkey on Sunday, asking the organization for help and “recognize their right to asylum.” Saying they were forced to immigrate “due to the instability of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq in terms of security, politics and religion.”

The refugee federation sent a letter on Saturday asking for the restoration of peace and comfort for Iraqi refugees. In the letter, they stated that keeping refugees in camps waiting without a response, as well as “the ignorance of UNHCR” towards refugees have made their life “extremely difficult.”

Difficulties included IDPs and refugees “committing suicide, psychological illness and frequent fires have led to their camps being burnt down in Greece, Iraq, Syria and other countries.”

The latest incident in the Kurdistan Region was a fire that ripped through Duhok’s Sharia IDP camp in early June hosting Yazidis, burning hundreds of tents, almost 1,000 people from more than 130 families were affected by the fire, Karwan Zaki Atroshi, coordinator for camps in Duhok, told Rudaw English.

This is while the Kurdistan Region has become the sole shelter for Refugees and IDPs after Iraq decided to close down all camps. According to the Joint Crisis Coordination (JCC) of the Kurdistan Region, the number of refugees that enter the Kurdistan Region are higher than those returning.

“Refugees and IDPs in the Kurdistan Region are generally not in a very good situation, the support that they had before has lessened,” Hoshang Mohammed, head of the JCC told Rudaw on Sunday. Yet, “the number of refugee arrivals are higher than their return,” added Mohammed.

According to the latest data published by JCC in June, a total of 3,545 IDPs and refugees arrived in the Kurdistan Region only in May, while 2,684 returned. There are now 928,674 IDPs and refugees in the Region, living in the 36 camps across the Kurdistan Region and outside of the camps.

Ari Jalal, head of The Summit Foundation for Refugee and Displaced Affairs (Lutka) on Sunday told Rudaw Radio that migration continues in the country at a “dangerous” rate and this is due to “the unstable political, economic and social situation.”

According to data by the organization, 26,972 Iraqi citizens have sought asylum in Europe in 2021 so far, and five people have lost their lives on the way.  He explained those numbers do not include people who travelled legally and have not returned, as well as those under 18. 

In 2020 the numbers were considerably low due to Covid-19 restrictions, but casualties were higher. Out of the 34,000 who migrated in 2020, a total of 35 people have either gone missing or died on the way. Jalal noted it is unclear how many of them are Kurdish migrants as migrants’ ethnicities are not recorded. 

Additional reporting: Samia Hassan, Sirwan Abbas