Mohammed Rafiq, who spent five years in Germany before being deported to Baghdad in November last year, shared his bitter experience during a panel at the event at the First Forum on the Global Compact of Migration in the Kurdistan Region.
"I moved abroad to support my family and relatives. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer," Rafiq told Rudaw. "Hunger had forced us to eat grass [during the journey to Europe]. Smugglers told me we would reach Europe in three to four days, but I was on the way for 14 to 15 days."
The forum focused on implementing the strategies and priorities of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration - an intergovernmental agreement adopted under UN auspices in 2018.
"A large number of migrants have been arrested, and money transfer points used by smugglers have been shut down," Kurdistan Region Interior Minister Reber Ahmed told reporters on the sidelines of the forum.
Libya has become a major transit hub for migrants, including Kurds from the Kurdistan Region, seeking to reach Europe.
"A total of 68 Iraqi citizens have recently been returned to Iraq," Ahmed al-Sahaf, charge d'affaires at the Iraqi diplomatic mission in Tripoli, told Rudaw on the sidelines of the event, adding the repatriated were "mostly youth, from Sulaimani province, in the Kurdistan Region."
Sahaf added they have made preparations to repatriate "another 41 citizens, also youth and from Sulaimani province."
More than 15,400 Iraqis have sought asylum in European countries in the first six months of 2025, according to the Lutka (Summit) Foundation for Refugees and Displaced Affairs.
