ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A father from the Kurdistan Region’s Ranya town found his son’s grave in Italy over ten months after he drowned in a deadly shipwreck off the coast, and is requesting government assistance to repatriate his body.
“On June 13, 2024, Hardi left the Kurdistan Region for Turkey, and from there he was going to Europe, but on the 17th of the same month, we received news that his boat with 73 people on board had sunk, only 10 people were rescued, and Hardi drowned,” Mohammed Bakhtiar, the cousin of the victim Hardi Karokh, told Rudaw on Saturday.
Two shipwrecks off the coasts of Italy’s Roccella Ionica and Lampedusa on June 17 left at least 70 migrants dead and missing. Most of the passengers were Kurds from the Kurdistan Region and Iran’s western Kurdish areas (Rojhelat), as well as people from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria.
Karokh Ismail, the father, had been searching for his son’s remains since the news of the shipwreck broke, according to Bakhtiar. He found his son’s grave on Saturday.
“In Italy, all assistance was provided so that we could bring Hardi’s body back to the Kurdistan Region. We ask the government or the Iraqi embassy to help us so that we can return Hardi’s body,” he said.
The father traveled to Italy on April 20 and located the hospital where DNA tests had been conducted on the victims of the shipwreck, Bakhtiar explained. Through the hospital, he found the graves of 20 people who had drowned that day. One of the graves bore the name and age of his son, Hardi Karokh.
Ismail returned from Italy on Saturday after his visa expired.
Tens of thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region take on perilous routes out of the country towards Europe every year in hopes of escaping the endless crises in the country, including the lack of employment, political instability, and corruption.
