Kurdistan to Cologne

I recently was looking into Kurdistan for another class and found a really interesting article from inside the autonomous region in Iraq about a human trafficker. His name was Riza Kewi, and for a sum of money (2000$-8000$ USD) will transport you from the Turkey across the sea to Europe. Riza claimed to have helped over 8000 make the Aegean journey this summer. He has a social media presence among the people (his Facebook has around 800 likes) and has been quoted, "There is nothing for you in Iraqi Kurdistan. Leave the country for the officials and come with me. I will make sure you reach Europe". Riza hangs out in the Aksaray neighborhood in Istanbul, a travel point for migrants heading to Europe. However, some of is customers weren't so happy with his service. A local man named Arya claimed to have paid Riza 8000$ to travel on a yacht to Bulgaria with 40 others; Arya said once he arrived that there were about twice the amount on a much smaller vessel - he was scared off and said: "They tried to convince me to get on the boat but I started to cry and then I was able to just run off". Another man Anwar was upset with misinformation given by Riza, who claimed the travel from Bulgaria to Germany is only 8 hours, when asked about it he said "But that was far from true. I think we walked for several days with no food and water or sleep. It’s hard to talk about this terrible journey even now. In my opinion the smugglers are just all sales people. None of them can really guarantee anything and none of them are trustworthy." Anwar also says that he traveled in between multiple smuggler organizations, "Every time we got to another city we would meet new guides - from Afghanistan, from Bulgaria or Austria - who were members of some criminal gang and who carried guns and knives." Kewi himself, interestingly enough, does not want to leave Turkey.

I hope that this sheds some insight into the daily struggles of the people who are heading to Europe - it is only one obstacle of many.

Hero or Profiteer?

Ekurd Report


Here pictured are some migrants heading towards Sweden, credit to niqash.org