Iraq's Brain Drain Continues

Many Iraqi youths have succeeded in emigrating to Europe. But some were not so lucky. Ahmed Saad told Al-Monitor, “[My] attempt to emigrate to the European paradise in December 2013 ended in Lebanon, where the smuggling intermediaries blackmailed me out of $6,000, which forced me to return to Iraq after spending a full year in [Lebanon].”

In regard to the reason he wanted to leave Iraq, Saad said, “Unemployment is what drove me to look for a future outside Iraq. Even though I graduated from the Institute of Technology in Baghdad in 2011, I could not find a job. … The other reason pushing young people like myself to emigrate is a feeling of instability in security and politics. My expectations that the security chaos in Iraq would continue were true. IS swept through the city of Mosul on June 10, 2014, months after I returned from Lebanon.”

Qasim Mozan, a writer and editor of the community section of the Iraqi newspaper Al Sabah, told Al-Monitor, “The dream of emigrating to Europe still flirts with the imagination of Iraqi youth. This feeling is shared by Arab youth, who are besieged by unemployment and a lack of freedom as they search for liberty and security.”

Mozan said, “The youth who emigrate believe that [foreign] countries would provide them with security and psychological comfort, and relieve them of their frustration, thus releasing their creative energies.”

He added, “The war in Iraq against IS is in fact pushing the young people to think about emigrating.”

Social researcher Ousama Alyaseri agrees. He told Al-Monitor, “The war factor is a temporary cause for emigrating from Iraq. But the long-term causes are poverty and unemployment. Young people think the situation is better abroad.”