A New Wave of Migrants Flees Iraq, Yearning for Europe
Source: New York Times
By TIM ARANGOSEPT. 8, 2015
BAGHDAD — Having sold his car for $4,600, and then some of his wife’s jewelry, and having loaded his smartphone with photographs of his five children, all that was left for Haider Abdella to do was say goodbye.
“From yesterday to today, we are crying,” he said.
His mother sat next to him on the couch, sobbing. “He’s never left me before, from when he was a child until now,” she said. “How can I bear him leaving?”
Mr. Abdella, 42, a police officer, had never left Iraq — never even seen the sea. But last week, he was on a plane to Istanbul, and from there traveled to the coastal resort city of Izmir, Turkey. A day later, he was on a smuggler’s boat to Greece, crying and praying over the phone with his family left behind in Baghdad. By the weekend, he told them, he was well on his way to Germany.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/world/middleeast/iraq-migrants-refugees-europe.html?_r=0
One can only wonder how many ISIL sympathizers are using this opportunity to establish in Europe.
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