The Washington Post - USA (2021-11-22)

A16 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021

BY LOUISA LOVELUCK

AND MUSTAFA SALIM

irbil, iraq — Their return felt
humiliating. As men, women and
children trudged exhausted
through the arrivals hall of Irbil’s
main airport, camera crews
mobbed them and yelled ques-
tions about why they had left Iraq
in the first place.
Most of the families just kept
their heads down. On the out-
bound journey they had been
hopeful, ready for the new life in
Europe that travel agents had
promised. But it turned out they
were unwitting pawns in Europe’s
latest migration battle. The repa-
triation flight brought them back
to the place they had spent life
savings trying to leave.
The return of more than 400
Iraqis on the Iraqi Airways flight
last week appeared to mark an
easing of a growing crisis at the
border of the European Union.
Belarusian President Alexander
Lukashenko has facilitated the
passage of thousands of mostly
Middle Eastern migrants through
Belarus and across the border into
Poland, where most are now
stranded in freezing weather.
On Thursday night, many
among the returning Iraqis looked
dazed beneath the airport’s glar-
ing lights. Most were from the
country’s Kurdish region. In the
days that followed, they recounted
their ordeals at the hands of Euro-
pean border guards and eyed the
future with despair.
Migrants said they were fleeing
hopelessness. “There’s no life for
us here,” said Mohamed Rasheed,
23, back home and facing the task
of rebuilding his savings from
scratch. “There are no jobs, there
is no future.”
Iraq’s coffers are lined with oil
wealth, but little trickles down to
citizens who aren’t politically con-
nected. More than a quarter of
Iraq’s young people are unem-
ployed. Decades of corruption and
mismanagement have hollowed
out the country’s health and edu-
cation systems. In the Kurdish re-

gion, the U.S.-backed ruling par-

ties are increasingly repressive.

Security forces have beaten and

arbitrarily detained protesters.

Human rights groups say authori-

ties are using vaguely worded laws

to bring criminal charges against

critics.

As the migrants arrived in Irbil,

the regional capital, a television

interviewer asked one young man

why he had left. The man frowned.

“Those words cannot leave my

mouth,” he said, his face partially

obscured by a black scarf. “Who

dares to tell the truth here?”

It had seemed a golden oppor-

tunity. Facebook groups an-

nounced that Belarus had eased

entry requirements for arrivals

from the Middle East and else-

where, as long as they paid for

Belarus-organized travel packag-

es that included visas, flights and

hotels in Minsk, the capital.

Social media showed migrants

boarding buses or taxis to the bor-

der with Poland, an E.U member

state. Belarusian border guards

were even helping them to cross.

To fund his journey, Rasheed

sold his car and other possessions.

In the city of Sulaymaniyah, 18-

year old Alan Othman gathered

four years of savings from his work

at a local restaurant.

Fresh hope rippled through dis-

placement camps. The Islamic

State led a genocide against Iraq’s

Yazidi minority, and thousands re-

main far from home. Some fami-

lies wondered whether Belarus

would finally offer an escape.

“We waited so long for this,”

said Hussein Elias Khuder, 36.

His mother said she paused out-

side the camp’s barren sprawl as

they left, taking one last look at a

place where the family, dependent

on aid groups and still trauma-

tized, had often fallen into despair.

She thought: “Leaving feels like

being reborn.”

As the migrants were repatriat-

ed, Kurdish officials insisted that

those who left for Belarus had

fallen prey to human traffickers.

“This isn’t a migrant issue but a

criminal human trafficking issue,”

tweeted Masrour Barzani, prime

minister of the Kurdistan Region-

al Government.

Returnees insisted that they left

by choice, after years of dwindling

faith that life might get better.

They carried their savings in

zip-top bags and fretted as the

piles of bank notes grew thinner. A

night in the Minsk hotel cost up to

$1,000. Taxi drivers insisted that

the going rate to the border was

$300 per person.

“They could probably even have

charged $100 for a bottle of water,”

Rasheed said. “Everyone wanted

to make money from us.”

Worse was to come. Belarusian

border guards helped the mi-

grants cross into Poland and Lith-

uania, but each time they were

beaten back by security forces on

the other side. The Poles set dogs

on them, they said. Lithuanian

border guards used cattle prods.

Then the Belarusians punished

migrants who came back their

way.

“They were beating us with

sticks, they screamed insults in

our faces,” Othman said. Like

thousands of other migrants, the

Iraqis found themselves stuck for

weeks in what Polish authorities

have designated an “emergency

zone,” in a forest, out of sight and

off-limits to aid groups and jour-

nalists.

Temperatures dropped below

freezing each night. Few of the

families had tents. On some days,

there was no food at all. At least

eight people have died, human

rights groups say. Othman said he

watched an Iraqi man drown after

border guards insisted he pass

through a freezing swamp. He

couldn’t swim.

“And all that for politics,” Khud-

er said. “No one helped. No one

cared.” As he recounted details of

the journey, his wife, Ghazala Ba-

rakat, 25, turned pale and fainted.

She came to several minutes later,

but continued to rasp with dis-

tressed breaths. “She’s been like

this since the forest,” Khuder said.

By the time Iraq announced the

first repatriation flight, returnees

say, they were running out of mon-

ey.

Rasheed’s bag of dog-eared dol-

lar bills was empty. Othman’s

mother was in tears and begging

him to come home. “I was ready to

stay there. I was willing to die

there,” he said. “I came back for

her.”

At the Minsk airport, Iraqi fam-

ilies slumped hollow-eyed in seats

as the plane was delayed several

hours. “Coming back was a terri-

ble feeling,” Rasheed said.

The arrival in Irbil felt like an-

other blow, returnees said. Khud-

er didn’t know how he could af-

ford a taxi home. Rasheed’s hun-

ger was overwhelming. Some peo-

ple covered their faces as

journalists swarmed around

them. Are you tired? reporters

yelled. Why did you leave? What

was wrong with Iraq?

Barakat fainted twice. Hussein

noted that none of the reporters

who swarmed them offered water

to revive her. “We left because we

wanted to find a better life,” he

said. “Not so we could come back,

hungry and thirsty, to tell the me-

dia what happened to us.”

[email protected]

Iraqis tell of abuse as unwitting pawns at Belarus border

Hundreds repatriated

t o place they spent life

savings trying to leave

AZAD LASHKARI/REUTERS

Ferman Jalal, an Iraqi Kurd and would-be migrant who voluntarily registered for evacuation from Minsk, Belarus, after attempting to

cross into the European Union, is held by his mother in Irbil. Returnees, broke and humiliated, said arriving in Irbil felt like another blow.

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