News Headlines
The Sum of All Fears 

Kurdish conditions for helping America to change Iraq’s regime

Iraqi Kurds Worry About U.S. Action 

Akrê Vegetable Oil Plant Opens

Turkey battles Kurd rebels in north Iraq-agency

Financing Iraqi Kurdistan's Literacy Effort

Saddam 'cleansing' of Kurds continues

Kurdish Leaders Confer with UN FAO Delegation

HADEP complains about increasing pressure after election rumors 
 
 

Iran, Turkey crack down on illegal Iraqi immigrants
Iraq Press

May 29, 2002

Turkey is reported to have rounded up scores of Iraqi immigrants in the past few days and forced them to return to the semi-independent Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq.

A truck, in which 34 such immigrants were crammed, turned over in an accident on the highway to the Kurdish enclave. One immigrant was killed and several others were injured, the returnees said on arrival in Iraq.

The immigrants were handed over to the Kurdish authorities on the border. They said four of their colleagues were seriously wounded and they were still in hospital in Turkey.

The group had entered Turkey via Iranian territory after paying 1,000 dollars each to smugglers.

The Iranian authorities, on the other hand, are reported to have seized 51 Iraqi Kurdish immigrants trying to sneak into Turkey. The immigrants were returned to northern Iraq.

Kurdish sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran had returned more than 500 illegal Iraqi immigrants to northern Iraq in the past few days, most of them from the cities of Sulaimaniya and Kirkuk.

Thousands of Iraqis, mostly of Kurdish origin, take Turkey as a staging point for a dangerous trip to the West. But the Turks have recently mounted a crackdown to limit the number of those illegally crossing the border from Iraq.

The refugees who are forced to return after their capture report mistreatment by the Turkish troops and gendarmes.