ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The bodies of 13 Kurds who lost their lives when their boat capsized off the Italian coast in mid-June were returned to the Kurdistan Region late Friday. Twin shipwrecks off the coasts of Italy’s Roccella Ionica and Lampedusa in mid-June left dozens of people dead and missing. Many of the passengers were Kurds from the Kurdistan Region and Iran’s western Kurdish areas (Rojhelat). Others hailed from other regional countries like Syria. The bodies of the victims were returned to Erbil on Friday. Eight were from the Kurdistan Region and the rest from Rojhelat. Two were buried at Erbil’s Kasnazan cemetery. The relatives of the two Kurds buried in Erbil told Rudaw that the smugglers tricked the migrants by telling them “The water is as safe as a swimming pool.” “We hope that the bodies of the remaining ones are returned too so that their families are relieved,” said a relative of Hero Omar - one of the victims of the incident. Some of the Kurdish survivors of the catastrophic incident spoke to Rudaw after their boats capsized. “They all died of thirst. My husband and daughter kept crying for water. All they cried for was 'water, water,'” Muzhda Omer, Hero’s sister, told Rudaw from a hospital in Soverato where she is receiving treatment. Three of her children were among the dead. Roya Mohedini, a 19-year-old survivor of the shipwreck near Roccella Ionica, said that several factors contributed to the tragedy, including being cheated by smugglers and having their cries for help ignored by several boats that passed by, as their hopes quickly faded in the deadly central Mediterranean waters. Every year, tens of thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region take perilous routes out of the country towards Europe in the hope of escaping endless crises in the country, including a lack of employment, political instability, and corruption. Around 20,000 people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region left the country in 2023 and at least nine of them lost their lives on dangerous and illegal smuggling routes, according to the Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugees and Displaced Affairs. Rudaw on Friday obtained the names of victims returned to the Kurdistan Region so far: Hazhar Mahmoud Ahmed Darbaz Aras Omer Othman Hero Omar Oula Miran Qadir Ahmed Nilan Hokar Musa Aram Abdulrahman Ahmed Khuncha Mulla Nabi Milan Haji Khder Hadis Zinjiri Makan Najfari Mubin Ali Pour Peswa Darwesh Pezhman Nazmara
