Saturday 27 November 2021

BBC - Why Iraqi Kurds risk their lives to reach the West


A 24-year-old Kurdish woman from northern Iraq, Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, has been named as the first victim of Wednesday's tragedy in the English Channel. The poor lady was hoping to join her fiancé, who is already here in the UK.

One oddity about the BBC report about her is the links added to the piece: 
  • What's being done to stop Channel crossings?
  • Why do migrants leave France for the UK?
  • The migrant debate can't escape European politics
  • Channel deaths: What do we know so far?
It misses, a highly relevant BBC report that was published overnight headlined Why Iraqi Kurds risk their lives to reach the West

The piece isn't even on the BBC News homepage either.

What's so striking about this buried-away piece is that it makes it plain that Iraqi Kurds come from a relatively secure, stable and prosperous area of the world and are essentially risking their lives to reach the West for economic reasons, to build better lives. 

In other words, they are economic migrants.

This runs counter to much of what the BBC has been telling us in recent days. You remember Lewis Goodall saying, “There's much discussion in Britain about whether these people are genuine asylum seekers. It's a fair question. But also fair to consider whether many or most would credibly take these sort of risks if they weren't”? Clearly they would, alas.

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