Chiya Qaraman was set to take a train from Italy to France alongside his wife and three children on July 10 but died while trying to get on the already-moving vehicle. He was a former member of local security forces in Darbandikhan.
“Before the train set off, his children had asked for water so he got out to bring them water. Once he saw the train moving, Chiya tried to get on the train but unfortunately he fell under it and lost his life,” Sleman Saeed, Darbandikhan mayor, told Rudaw.
The legal procedures of the repatriation were carried out by the Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugees and Displaced Affairs, and the cost was covered by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Tens of thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region take perilous routes out of the country towards Europe on a yearly basis in hopes of escaping endless crises in the country, including a lack of employment, political instability, and corruption.
At least 35 migrants from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region have lost their lives on illegal migration routes since the start of the year, according to Lutka.
Twin shipwrecks off the coasts of Italy’s Roccella Ionica and Lampedusa in June left more than 70 migrants dead and missing. Most of the passengers were Kurds from the Kurdistan Region and Iran’s western Kurdish areas, as well as people from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria.
Over 750,000 people have migrated out of the country since 2015, according to 2023 data from Lutka, also recording at least 319 migrant deaths during that period, and adding that the whereabouts of 236 others remain unknown.
