Yazidi family abandons EU dream, reluctantly returns to Iraq
ABC News
Hundreds of Iraqis have returned home after abandoning their journey to reach the European Union through Belarus, after they got stopped at the Polish border in a standoff that turned tense
DOHUK, Iraq -- 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 of Minsk, the first stop on a journey to the West.
His wife, 30-year-old Zena, 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 brutalized by Islamic State militants when they overran northern Iraq in 2014.
