Migrants will try again

Khari Hasan Kalo peered out of the window of the repatriation flight as it touched down in northern Iraq. It’s a place he and his family had hoped never to see again after they left for Belarus two months ago, driven by dreams of a new life in Europe.

Kalo, 35, had begged for loans and spent his savings on the ill-fated journey to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, the first stop on a journey to the West. His wife Zena, 30, had sold her few belongings on the gamble that left the family of six stranded for days in a cold forest on the border of Belarus and Poland.

In the end, they returned home, fearing they were endangering the life of Kalo’s ailing 80-year-old mother.

Yet they say they would do it all again to escape their hopeless life, spent in a camp for displaced persons for the past seven years.

The Kalos are Yazidis, a religious minority that was brutalised by Islamic State militants when they overran northern Iraq in 2014. Years after their lives were torn apart, many Yazidis are still unable to return home or locate hundreds of women and children who were snatched by the extremists. The Kalos’ home lies in ruins.

Hundreds of Iraqis returned home from Belarus this week after abandoning their hopes of reaching the European Union. The repatriation came after thousands of migrants became stuck at the Poland-Belarus border amid rising tensions between the

two countries.

The West has accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of using the migrants as pawns to destabilise the EU in retaliation for its sanctions imposed on his authoritarian regime following a harsh crackdown on internal dissent.

Belarus denies engineering the crisis, which has seen migrants entering the country since the northern summer, lured by easy tourist visas, and then trying to cross into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, all EU members.

Kalo said he didn’t mind if a geopolitical game was being played at his expense if it got his family out of Iraq. ‘‘So what if I was a pawn in someone’s hands if it gets me to Germany?’’

But the family’s hope was not lost, he said.

‘‘I have two priorities now. The first (is) to get a tent of our own. The second, to get back on my feet and leave this country. I will make it this time.’’

He added: ‘‘If it was my last day on this Earth, I will spend it trying to leave.’’