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Scores of Kurdish Migrants Return Home After Disappointment in Europe

© AP Photo / Armin WeigelRefugees walk to a chartered train at the railway station of Passau, Germany Tuesday Jan. 5, 2016
Refugees walk to a chartered train at the railway station of Passau, Germany Tuesday Jan. 5, 2016 - Sputnik International
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An influx of Kurds are now turning from Germany back toward Iraqi Kurdistan following a cold reception in Europe.

After spending weeks in Germany, many Kurdish migrants from Iraq feel disappointed and have signed up for voluntary repatriation, Rudaw media outlet reported on Sunday.

“I prefer my own country to here,” Mohammed Mahmoud who recently arrived in Germany in search of a better life, told Rudaw. “I have been here for five months, but nothing has been done for me. I intend to return and I insist, even if there is no job… it is better than here.”

A greater number of migrants from Iraqi Kurdistan entered into Europe along with the influx of Syrian refugees last year. Migrants had to follow strict policies to obtain a permit of stay in the EU, and the procedure can take up to several months.

“We are bored. They give us only 70-80 euros [per month],” Amir Khafaf, another Kurdish asylum seeker in Germany, said. “We cannot afford clothes or anything else, but only food. We are forced to return, repent…repent”.

Migrants stay in queue during heavy snowfall before passing Austrian-German border in Wegscheid in Austria, near Passau November 22, 2015 - Sputnik International
‘Austria Isn’t What We Expected’: Refugees Returning to War-Torn Homes
Voluntary return is more common among migrants from Iraqi Kurdistan, than from other regions of Iraq, according to German authorities, Rudaw reported. An unofficial figure estimates the number of returnees at over 50 a day. In January alone, there have reportedly been at least 86 returns using direct Berlin-Erbil flights.

In 2015, more than one million migrants entered Germany, fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries.

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