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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Cries of “water, water” haunt a Kurdish mother as she recalled how her three children and husband died of thirst and cold when the boat they were in capsized off the Italy coast this week.
“They all died of thirst. My husband and daughter kept crying for water. All they cried for was 'water, water,'” Muzhda Omer told Rudaw from a hospital in Soverato where she is receiving treatment.
“My little son and my nephew froze to death. They did not drown. They froze to death.”
Twin shipwrecks off the coasts of Italy’s Roccella Ionica and Lampedusa this week have left dozens of people dead and missing. Many of the passengers were Kurds from the Kurdistan Region and Iran’s western Kurdish areas. Others hailed from other regional countries like Syria.
Omer and her family began their journey as a group of six - mother, father, and four children. Only two survived.
“My youngest child was three years and a half years old. Mardin was 12 years old. Maylan was 16 years old. And Miran is 14 years old and he is alive,” the mother said.
According to Italian authorities, 67 people were onboard the ships that capsized on Sunday, Rezan Hama Salih, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) representative to Rome, told Rudaw on Thursday.
She added that most of the 11 survivors are Kurds.
“We visited all of them. They are being treated in three hospitals that are far from one another… Most of them whom we have seen were Kurds. One of them was an Arab from Kirkuk,” Hama Salih said.
Two children are among the survivors and four bodies have so far been recovered.
Italian authorities are investigating the incident, according to the KRG representative who said she would meet with a judge later on Thursday. Twenty-one from the Kurdistan Region are missing.
Omer said there were at least 80 people on her boat and that most of them were from Iran.
“The majority were Iranians. The Kurds were us and some others who were different families from Raniya and Chwarqurna [Raparin administration, Sulaimani province]. The rest were Iranians... There were a lot of women and children among us. We had a pregnant woman with us,” she said.
She also lost other members of her extended family.
“My nephews and nieces and my sister's husband all disappeared in front of my eyes,” she recalled.
“My husband even told the captain if he lost the route, he could change direction and move somewhere where there would be an internet signal. He said 'No, we are trying to dodge the waves.' He kept saying that after 24 hours or 48 hours we would get the internet, until the propeller broke down. Had the propeller not broken down, we would not have faced any problems,” she recounted.
She said the smugglers were two Persians.
The KRG will cover the flights of those who are willing to return to the Kurdistan Region, Hama Salih said.
Roya Mohedini, a 19-year-old survivor of the shipwreck near Roccella Ionica, said that several factors contributed to the tragedy, including being cheated by smugglers and having their cries for help ignored by several boats that passed by, as their hopes quickly faded in the deadly central Mediterranean waters.
She said many people died because they could not drink salty water.
“Because we drank that salty water, our tongues were sore. Until the end of the fourth day, a boat… that belonged to France came to our aid. It was 1:30 am,” she said.
She said there were Kurds from the Kurdistan Region, Iran and Syria onboard and that most of them were couples.
Mohedini said she was planning to join her brother in Switzerland and is determined to reach him, despite the tragedy.
“They all died of thirst. My husband and daughter kept crying for water. All they cried for was 'water, water,'” Muzhda Omer told Rudaw from a hospital in Soverato where she is receiving treatment.
“My little son and my nephew froze to death. They did not drown. They froze to death.”
Twin shipwrecks off the coasts of Italy’s Roccella Ionica and Lampedusa this week have left dozens of people dead and missing. Many of the passengers were Kurds from the Kurdistan Region and Iran’s western Kurdish areas. Others hailed from other regional countries like Syria.
Omer and her family began their journey as a group of six - mother, father, and four children. Only two survived.
“My youngest child was three years and a half years old. Mardin was 12 years old. Maylan was 16 years old. And Miran is 14 years old and he is alive,” the mother said.
According to Italian authorities, 67 people were onboard the ships that capsized on Sunday, Rezan Hama Salih, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) representative to Rome, told Rudaw on Thursday.
She added that most of the 11 survivors are Kurds.
“We visited all of them. They are being treated in three hospitals that are far from one another… Most of them whom we have seen were Kurds. One of them was an Arab from Kirkuk,” Hama Salih said.
Two children are among the survivors and four bodies have so far been recovered.
Italian authorities are investigating the incident, according to the KRG representative who said she would meet with a judge later on Thursday. Twenty-one from the Kurdistan Region are missing.
Omer said there were at least 80 people on her boat and that most of them were from Iran.
“The majority were Iranians. The Kurds were us and some others who were different families from Raniya and Chwarqurna [Raparin administration, Sulaimani province]. The rest were Iranians... There were a lot of women and children among us. We had a pregnant woman with us,” she said.
She also lost other members of her extended family.
“My nephews and nieces and my sister's husband all disappeared in front of my eyes,” she recalled.
“My husband even told the captain if he lost the route, he could change direction and move somewhere where there would be an internet signal. He said 'No, we are trying to dodge the waves.' He kept saying that after 24 hours or 48 hours we would get the internet, until the propeller broke down. Had the propeller not broken down, we would not have faced any problems,” she recounted.
She said the smugglers were two Persians.
The KRG will cover the flights of those who are willing to return to the Kurdistan Region, Hama Salih said.
Roya Mohedini, a 19-year-old survivor of the shipwreck near Roccella Ionica, said that several factors contributed to the tragedy, including being cheated by smugglers and having their cries for help ignored by several boats that passed by, as their hopes quickly faded in the deadly central Mediterranean waters.
She said many people died because they could not drink salty water.
“Because we drank that salty water, our tongues were sore. Until the end of the fourth day, a boat… that belonged to France came to our aid. It was 1:30 am,” she said.
She said there were Kurds from the Kurdistan Region, Iran and Syria onboard and that most of them were couples.
Mohedini said she was planning to join her brother in Switzerland and is determined to reach him, despite the tragedy.
Bakhtyar Ismail lost eight of his family members. He told Rudaw on Wednesday that two of the smugglers are from the Kurdistan Region and a third is from Iran’s western Kurdish areas (Rojhelat).
As their boat approached Italy, its engine exploded and punctured a hole in the vessel, causing it to rapidly start sinking, the Italian Red Cross told Rudaw.
The boat capsized and all 76 migrants on board fell into the sea, according to Mohedini.
Concetta Gioffrey, an Italian Red Cross worker who gave first aid to the 11 survivors at the port of Roccella Ionica, said that the survivors “arrived with broken limbs and were suffering from very dry skin.”
She said she has “no words” to describe the severity of their condition.
Every year, tens of thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region take perilous routes out of the country towards Europe in hope of escaping endless crises in the country, including a lack of employment, political instability, and corruption.
Around 20,000 people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region left the country in 2023 and at least nine of them lost their lives on dangerous and illegal smuggling routes, according to the Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugees and Displaced Affairs.
Zinar Shino contributed to this article.
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