Migrants: We prefer dying on way to Europe than at home

By Ilgin Karlidag

BRUSSELS

Abdulkarim Al-Iraqi was not sure he, his 9-year-old son and his younger brother, would survive on their path to Europe, but it was a risk he was willing to take to flee war, poverty and persecution back home in Iraq.

"We prefer dying here because we would die with respect. We don’t want to die in our own country because we are humiliated there," 30-year-old Abdulkarim told the Anadolu Agency.

He is one of hundreds of migrants in Brussels camping at a park outside a refugee center and waiting for their turn to apply for asylum.

"We wanted to come to Belgium because it’s a country that respects human beings and has human rights," he said.

Although Abdulkarim and his younger brother -- who did not want his name revealed -- are graduate students, they foresaw no opportunity of employment because of what they called the "sectarian policies" of the current Iraqi government in Baghdad.

Persecuted and even threatened for belonging to another sectarian group -- which he did not want to reveal out of fear -- Abdulkarim said he and his son were forced to risk their lives to pursue a life outside of Iraq.

"We traveled in large groups, moving from one car to another," Abdulkarim said. "One time there were so many people crammed inside a car that we almost suffocated," he said.

On Aug. 27, 71 refugees, believed to be from Syria, were found dead in an abandoned lorry on a highway in Austria near the Hungarian border.

Around 2,500 refugees and migrants have died or gone missing trying to reach Europe this year alone, according to the United Nations.

Ahmed Suhi, a 28-year-old refugee staying at the same camp as Abdulkarim, decided to volunteer to provide other refugees with food, water and hygienic supplies.

Ahmed said Iraqi authorities persecuted him in Baghdad after he reportedly upset a member of the government, prompting him to eventually flee the country.

"They came to my house; if they would have caught me then they would have killed me," Ahmed said.

The influx of refugees, fleeing war and persecution back home, has prompted divisions between EU member states over the handling of the crisis and distributing asylum seekers across the 28-nation bloc.

Hungary has responded to the crisis by erecting a fence on its southern border with Serbia -- a move criticized by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius as a "scandalous" policy against refugees.

"If we would create an image … just come because we are ready to accept everybody, that would be a moral failure, because that is not the case," Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.

"The moral human thing is to make clear, please don’t come. Why do you have to go from Turkey to Europe? Turkey is a safe country. Stay there. It’s risky to come," he said.

EU rules state the country where a refugee first arrives must process their asylum claim.

But because the EU lacks a common asylum policy, with different countries handling asylum in different ways, disputes between member states over the distribution of refugees across the bloc have arisen.

On Thursday, European Council President Donald Tusk called on all EU member states to boost efforts to share asylum seekers across the 28-nation bloc.

Addressing the media at a joint press conference with Orban, Tusk said: "Fair distribution of at least 100,000 refugees among EU states is what we need to do."

Interior ministers of all 28 EU states are expected to meet on Sept. 14 in Brussels to discuss ways to cope with the migrant crisis.