MESOP TODAYS FOCAL POINT : WESTERN DEVELOPMENT NGO’S LEAVE YOUR PROJECTS IN MIDDLE EAST – GO HOME AND FOLLOW THE MIGRATING PEOPLE

Iraqi Kurds’ mass migration is cause for alarm: Kurdistan parliament speaker

ERBIL-Hewler, nrtvv.com – 6 Sept 2015 – Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s Parliament Speaker says the current migration of refugees and asylum seekers to Europe, especially Kurds, is a cause for alarm.

In a post to his Facebook page on Thursday, Speaker Yousif Mohammed said Kurds are leaving their homes in droves because of war, lack of jobs and services as well as injustice.“The life of people has become hard and difficult due to last year’s economic and political issues and yet they still aren’t solved,” Mohammed said. The Speaker’s post came the day after international media outlets began posting photos showing three-year-old Aylan Abdullah Kurdi’s lifeless body washed ashore on a Turkish beach. “The death of that Kurdish child is not a simple death for us; it reminds us of the deaths of hundreds of children [killed during Anfal] and because of chemical weapons in Halabja,” Mohammed said.

With the Kurdistan Region facing an economic and political crisis as well as a fight against Islamic State militants that has entered its second year, many Iraqi Kurds are fleeing to western countries to find a better life.According to the Iraqi Federation of Refugees, more than 10,000 people, including young people and families, have left the Kurdistan Region in the past 10 months.