BAGHDAD (AP) – As the sun sets over Baghdad, Mustafa Jassim Mohammed wades into the Tigris River, lifts his feet off the muddy bottom and paddles with an arm maimed by shrapnel, practicing ahead of a journey on which his ability to swim could mean the difference between death at sea and a new life in Europe.
He knows that hundreds of migrants – men, women and children – have died when their smuggler boats capsized, and he’s seen the heart-wrenching pictures of the drowned Syrian boy who washed ashore in Turkey last week. But he’s also seen TV footage of thousands of migrants making their way across Europe and being welcomed in certain quarters. After more than a decade of chaos and war in his homeland, it’s a gamble he’s willing to take.
“The situation in Iraq is getting worse every day,” said Mohammed, a 29-year-old father of two. “I’m fed up. I can’t continue living here and can’t feed my family. There’s nothing left in Iraq.”
He quit his two jobs, as a civil servant and a tea seller, and sold his belongings to buy a one-way ticket to Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, where he’ll cross into Turkey and join an unprecedented tide of migrants fleeing war and poverty across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. His wife and two children will stay behind, praying for his safety and hoping to be reunited with him somewhere more secure.
Like many Iraqis, he’s wanted to leave for years, but is only doing so now because he’s seen the images of migrants being welcomed in Germany and Austria. He’s found videos online offering advice on how to sail from Turkey to Greece: Check the weather forecast before leaving; wear a life vest if you can’t swim; get rid of your inflatable raft as soon as you arrive in Greece so the coast guard doesn’t send you back on it.