Still wearing her lifejacket and dripping wet, she was taken to the local gendarmerie and then to hospital where doctors took care of her swollen body. She later found out that a few bodies had been recovered from the shore.
With a heavy heart, she went to the morgue where she recognised her husband, her eldest son and the Afghan lady and her husband who had been on the boat with them. A few days later, relatives came to take her and the two bodies back to her village of Dashtmere near the Iraqi Kurdish town of Zakho. Apart from her family, 13 other Iraqi Kurds died on that boat. Zakho is a relatively prosperous town, with many families working in trade and transportation linked to the nearby Ibrahim Khalil border crossing between Turkey and the Kurdish region, the main gateway for the billions-worth of Turkish goods that Iraq imports.
For the decade and a half since the US invasion of Iraq, the Kurdish region prospered, its residents enjoying a much higher standard of living than the rest of the country. Yet over the past four years, large numbers of Iraqi Kurds have attempted the dangerous journey to Europe. In his estimate, thousands of Iraqi Kurds leave each year using human smuggling channels through Turkey to Europe, and hundreds die along the way, killed by the sea, harsh weather, or by the smugglers themselves.
But the political disputes that started between the KRG and Baghdad starting in and the drop in oil prices gradually worsened the economic situation. A lot of major infrastructure projects were put on hold and foreign investment decreased, while the government cut the salaries of state employees.
But apart from the Erbil-Baghdad dispute, part of the blame for the deteriorating socioeconomic situation in the Kurdish region should also be put on the Kurdish political elite, says Eliassi. In his opinion, the year-old power-sharing agreement between t he Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan PUK has limited access to resources for people who are not directly affiliated with the two parties.
In this regard, however, the Kurdish region is no different from the rest of Iraq, where some of the regions richest in oil, such as Basra, are also the poorest and most underdeveloped, Eliassi points out. Security officials in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq found neither the perpetrators nor the motive behind their murders. As a representative of the CPJ in the Middle East, Ignacio Delgado told me, journalists are killed and tortured by partisan forces loyal to the ruling parties, while assailants have full immunity.
He was found dead in his car along with his wife, fellow journalist Lana Mohammad, and their three-year-old son. Only a few hours after their death, Sulaymaniyah Police, which has links to the PUK, released a statement, declaring the incident a double murder-suicide. They said that Babani shot his wife and child dead, and then turned the gun on himself. This version of events was publicly disputed by journalists and politicians, and I, myself, find it hard to believe that my friend would do such a thing.
He was a calm and kind person and he would have never harmed those who were dearest to him. That allegation came after the exchange of several tit-for-tat statements by KDP and PUK officials, accusing each other of many wrongdoings, including killing journalists and being involved in corruption schemes. The semi-autonomous Kurdish region is neither a model for other parts of Iraq, nor an inspiration for the Kurds in Iran, Turkey and Syria.
What is going on in the KRI has also caught the attention of the international community. Nada AlTaher. Updated: August 3rd , PM. Iraq Kurdistan Regional Government Oil. Space tourists 'distract astronauts' says Russian agency chief. Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based organization, has also detailed the escape, arrest and ultimate execution of Salimi. The issue has deepened the partisan divide between the KDP and PUK, with officials accusing each other of being puppets of foreign countries.
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