At a Glance

• The President of the Association of Returned Migrants has dismissed all rumors regarding the reported drowning of several Kurdish migrants.
• The association's European representative confirmed that 11 bodies recovered from the sea and transferred to the Italian Navy.
• A joint press conference will be held today alongside the families of the missing migrants to release verified data.

The Association of Returned Migrants has dismissed reports of 18 Kurdish migrants drowning in the Mediterranean as false, clarifying that these individuals remain missing from a lost vessel while 11 unrelated bodies have been recovered by the Italian Navy.

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Key Statements and Focus Area

• Bakir Ali, President of the Association of Returned Migrants, stated that the reports published regarding the drowning of these migrants are “completely unfounded."
• Peshraw Abdullah, the association's representative in Europe, told Channel8 that 18 migrants who departed Libya for Italy on August 16 remain officially unaccounted for.

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Bakir Ali said that they will hold a press conference on Wednesday alongside the families of the migrants to release information about them and uncover the facts of the incident.

Regarding the statistics of Kurdish migrants in Libya, Ali confirmed that there are currently more than 200 Kurdish migrants planning to reach European countries via the Mediterranean route.

He also noted that the fate of 21 migrants has remained unknown since last March, and efforts are ongoing to uncover their whereabouts

Concurrently, Peshraw Abdullah highlighted that Of those 18 missing individuals who departed Libya, 11 are from the Kurdistan Region, while the remaining 7 are Ethiopian nationals.

The European representative stated that based on his direct communications with the families of the Ethiopian nationals, adding that the migrants went missing on the night of August 8/9 while traveling on a rubber dinghy in the Mediterranean between Italy and Libya.

Abdullah further mentioned that 11 bodies have indeed been recovered from the Mediterranean and officially handed over to the Italian Navy.

FYI

The Kurdistan Regional Government, in close coordination with the Iraqi Embassy in Libya, has engaged in an intensive, multi-phase repatriation campaign throughout late 2025 and 2026 to safely bring home hundreds of young Kurdish migrants stranded or detained in Libya.

Many of these youths travel to North Africa via complex smuggling networks in an attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe. However, countless individuals end up trapped in severe humanitarian conditions, detained in official prisons, or abducted by non-state armed groups.

Successful legal and diplomatic procedures led to the recent repatriation of 33 long-detained Kurdish migrants from Libya in September 2026, alongside ongoing operations to locate 11 who remain missing. 

This follows a major wave of state-led rescues in January 2026, which used coordinated charter flights to return 151 individuals and initiated plans for 208 more primarily from the Ranya region. 

These actions build heavily on late 2025 escalations, where hundreds of stranded youths, including a group of 40 from Sulaimani routed via Istanbul, were safely brought back to Erbil International Airport. 

The vast majority of the young migrants risking the Libya route originate from Slemani's Raparin Independent Administration (specifically towns like Ranya, Hajiawa, Chwarqurna, and the Pishdar region).

According to local migration directorate data, well over 500 stranded migrants from Ranya alone have been repatriated over the years, underscoring how heavily this specific region has been impacted by irregular migration trends.

The Association of Returned Migrants continues to work alongside European maritime authorities, including the Italian Coast Guard and Navy, to cross-reference passenger manifests and identify recovered remains to provide closure to families within the Kurdistan Region.

Association of Returned Migrants Demands Answers Over Vanished Kurdish Citizens

Fate of More Than 30 Kurdish Migrants in Libya Remains Unknown