ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A migrant boat carrying Syrian passengers, including Kurds, has gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea after departing from Libya, families and a migrants’ association said on Sunday.
“My brother left Libya for Italy at 01:30 am today. Their boat ran out of gasoline in the Mediterranean sea,” Masoud Khalil Hamo, brother of one of the passengers, told Rudaw on Sunday.
“The news is true and we are aware of it,” Peshraw Abdullah, a representative of the Returning Refugees Association, told Rudaw
"The passengers on the boat are from Western Kurdistan [northeast Syria or Rojava] and Syria. Unfortunately, they are also using the Aegean route to Greece,” he said, noting that similar incidents occur on this route.
Every year, tens of thousands of people from the Middle East seek to escape endless crises of lack of employment, political instability, and corruption by joining thousands of others from scores of countries taking perilous routes to Europe.
Khalil, who is from Sare Kani (Ras al-Ain) in the north of Syria, said that there are around 30 people on the boat and are in a “very bad condition”
He added that his 24-year-old brother, Mustafa, is unmarried and has lost contact with him.
Zhivan Bakr contributed to this article.
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