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Article: Riders on the Storm.(Kurds from Iraq escape to Europe)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Newsweek International
- Article date:
- March 5, 2001
- Author:
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The 33-year-old doctor took off his blue overcoat to answer a visitor's question. Why had he fled northern Iraq, paying smugglers $2,000 to take him through Turkey to "somewhere in Europe"? He rolled up the sleeve of his plaid shirt. Why had he and about 900 other Kurds squeezed into the hold of a derelict freighter called the East Sea, only to be abandoned off the southern coast of France when it ran aground? Dr. Ihsan Ibrahim held out his withered arm. A ragged scar wound its way over the shrunken biceps and under his shoulder. In Iraq, he said, he was attacked one night and stabbed several times because he'd been agitating against Saddam Hussein. "If I hadn't made this ...