The trip could have killed them. But those fleeing economic ruin in the Middle East say they will do it more than 100 times

“There is no future for my son in Iraq,” Azhi’s father, Ali Rasool, 26, told CNN from his Erbil home. “Trying to go to Europe is for Azhi. I need a future for my children.”

Break the cycle of suffering

Across the Middle East and North Africa, talk about migration is rampant. Although guns have been silenced in most of the conflict zones in the region, much of the misery has not given up. The violence that once engulfed four countries – Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq – has given way to economic devastation extending beyond their borders. Many regional economies have already reeled from the combined effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, refugee flows and political instability.

Government corruption in the MENA region is widely seen as the main culprit, alongside geopolitical instability. A recent survey found that a third of the region’s 200 million young Arabs are considering emigrating. In 2020, that number is even larger, almost half of all young Arabs.

The problem is most acute in post-conflict areas, with economic downturns and where corruption thrives. In Syria, the United Nations Development Program says the poverty rate is now around 90%, up from 50-60% in 2019 when violence was significantly more widespread. Those deemed food insecure increased from 7.9 million in 2019 to more than 12 million in 2020.

UNDP Resident Representative in Syria Ramla Khalidi told CNN: “We’re talking about people with income, one poor person, one job, two jobs in the family. “That means they’re skipping meals, they’re going into debt, they’re consuming cheaper, less nutritious meals.”

About 98% of people said food is their top spend. “Fresh fruits and vegetables are a luxury and they are omitting meats in their diets,” says Khalidi.

In parts of Syria outside of Assad’s rule – namely the country’s Kurdish-controlled northeast and northwest, which are dominated by radical Islamist rebels – the economy also in bad condition.

“It’s the only thing that people still share in Syria. Everyone suffers economically no matter who controls the regions,” said Haid Haid, associate at the Middle East and North Africa Program of Chatham House said.

This is a situation that has displaced many of the country’s highly skilled workforce, exacerbating the difficult economic situation, said UN Khalidi.

“Hospitals, schools, factories have lost a lot of skilled workers because many of these people are trying to find a way out even if it means risking their lives,” she said. , and at the same time call on sponsoring countries to invest in”. resilience interventions” to enhance livelihoods in urban and rural areas.

“It’s an unprecedented crisis in terms of its complexity,” Khalidi said. “Every year, the amount of funding has increased, but we see humanitarian need as well, so I think we need to change the model, reduce our reliance on humanitarian and focus more funding. for early recovery and recovery efforts.”

In neighboring Iraq, ravaged by many battles, including the brutal war with IS, the economy has improved, but a sense of hopelessness still prevails. A youth-led anti-corruption protest movement in October 2019 was crushed and co-joined by major political elements, and while independent politicians have achieved unprecedented success In this year’s parliamentary elections, authoritarianism and corruption continue to dominate the country’s political and commercial centers, analysts say.

“We cannot talk about Kurdistan or the Iraqi Federation as something that is working because it is not,” said Hafsa Halawa, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute. Middle East Institute, refers to the northern semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. “The reality is that public services are intermittent, chance is 0, corruption, tyranny and violence are ongoing and frequent.”

“What’s wrong with a 21, 22-year-old saying, ‘I can’t stay here like my parents did. I have to break the cycle. I have to change things for my future family, for my future kids “?”

Halawa, Anglo-Iraqi-Egyptian, argues that the main driver of the refugee influx is the disappearance of legal mechanisms for the entry of skilled workers into Europe.

“The catch for me – if I’m talking about the UK immigration point scheme and (Home Secretary) Priti Patel she referred to it – is that my father is a qualified surgeon. Having served the NHS for 40 years, Halawa said he would not be eligible for a work visa when he arrived.

“The mechanisms by which we – in the developed world – allow people to learn and then keep them here to benefit society are gone,” Halawa said.

Chatham House’s Haid, a native Syrian, considers herself one of the lucky ones. Almost five years ago, he was granted asylum in the UK. He said the images of dead Syrians on the English Channel brought him mixed emotions and personal relief. He also believes that the exodus of Syrians will continue unabated.

“When things (in Syria) start to get worse even though the violence has decreased, that’s when the people living there are affected by the fact that things will never get better,” Haid said. “That’s why even those who refused to leave the country during the war now feel that there is no other solution but to flee, because there is no light at the end of the tunnel. That’s it. .”

At the same time, Haid felt like he had made it to the UK in no time. “You feel lucky that you came before your opportunity, which was rapidly closing, closed forever,” he said.

Back in Erbil, Shoxan Hussein and her husband Ali Rasool believe that legal travel to Europe has been permanently closed. Rasool, a director of a real estate company, and Hussein, an engineer, applied for visas at the French embassy earlier this year but say they have never received a response.

“Erbil is better for me and my wife than anywhere else in the world. We have a good car, nice clothes,” Rasool said. “But this is all for Azhi…we’ve done three surgeries here and to no avail. The problem is (the doctors) are taking our money and they’re not producing even a single one. is 5%.”

“If you told me to risk my life 100 times before I went to Europe to improve my son’s life, my wife and I would do it,” he said. “I will repeat this journey 100 times.”