SORAN, Kurdistan Region — Family members of a 24-year-old Kurdish woman who died en route to reunite with her fiancé in the UK are in shock after her tragic death in the English Channel.
Baran Nuri Hamadamin was from the town of Soran in Erbil province. She was one of the 27 people who died on Wednesday after trying to reach Britain on a flimsy inflatable boat.
"She was with two to three other people who told her the Channel was not nearly as long as she thought, that it was only about 25 minutes. They recommended that she go with them," said Iman Hassan, Baran's cousin.
"Baran was young, she was 24 years old. She had never been to sea before. So how could she know about the big tides?," recalled the cousin.
Baran got engaged to a Kurdish man living in the UK earlier this year. While her fiancé has British citizenship, she had planned to illegally enter the country to join him.
She left Dargala village in Soran, northeast Erbil, on November 2.
She joined two other Kurdish women who were also attempting to reach the UK to join their fiancés.
"I don't merely ask for my daughter's body to be repatriated," said Nuri Hamadamin, Baran’s father. "I ask that Prime Minister Masrour [Barzani] make some efforts to repatriate all the bodies back to Kurdistan [Region]."
Most of the migrants involved in the fatal incident are believed to be Kurds.
France and the UK have called for new measures to limit migration across the Channel.
Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani tweeted that he was “deeply saddened by the tragic loss of 27 innocent lives” in the English Channel.
Translation and video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed
