The bodies of 16 people drowned in the Channel have returned to Iraq | Migration Issues

The mourners gather in Erbil to welcome those affected by the November 24 shipwreck between the UK and France.

The bodies of 16 Iraqi Kurdish refugees and refugees, who immersion when their boat was wrecked while trying to cross the English Channel last month, they were repatriated to Iraq.

On Sunday, a cargo plane landed at the airport in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.

Ambulances then took the coffins to the villages of the dead.

A video released by Rudaw showed relatives crying as the boxes were removed from the airport.

“The last time I heard my son’s voice was when he boarded a boat. “Don’t worry Mama, I’ll be in England soon,” he said. Now he has come to me in a box, “said Shukriya Bakir.

The November 24 accident, in which 27 people were killed, was the deadliest in the history of the world refugees and refugees trying to cross the channel to the United Kingdom from France. The victims were seven women, a 16-year-old and a seven-year-old child.

In addition to the 16 Kurds of Iraq, the 26 victims were an Iranian Iranian, four Afghan men, three Ethiopians, Somalis and Egyptians.

Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of people have arrived in Western Europe with the help of smugglers – fleeing conflict, persecution and poverty – on high-profile flights from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan and elsewhere. Few are accepted.

Iraq is no longer at war since the fall of ISIL (ISIS) in 2017 but the growing unemployment and unemployment rate, as well as the political system that many Iraqi people consider to be fraudulent and intellectual, mean that many people see little chance of a better life. at home.

In the UK, meanwhile, in recent months it has seen an increasing number of people fleeing conflict or poverty trying to reach the coast, hoping to find security or better opportunities.

Many are at risk for dangerous voyages on small, immovable boats from France, such crossings have tripled this year compared to 2020.

The UK and France have pledged to take action to reduce the number of people trying to cross the border, but there are tensions between allies. spiked following what happened in November.

French President Emmanuel Macron accused British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the time of being “indifferent” in his approach to preventing the crossing of a busy street in the world. Paris was outraged by Johnson’s first reaction to the tragedy, which seemed to denigrate France.

Opponents of the Johnson Conservative Party’s ruling coalition, including civil rights groups and opposition politicians, have criticized its failure to open up safe and legal channels for asylum seekers, forcing those seeking to travel to the UK to make dangerous crossings in order to do so. .

Almost always, the UK expects people to live within their borders before filing a reservation form.