Iraq's Brain Drain Continues

According to field polls he conducted, Alyaseri said, “Iraqis prefer emigrating to countries such as Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands. … My following up on the matter indicates that Iraqi authorities have no statistical data of the rate of emigration.”

The smuggling operations to Europe often happen through smuggling networks transporting illegal immigrants through the woods, between countries’ borders and across the sea in small boats.

But some disagree that the war against IS has encouraged emigration. Hassan al-Sayed Salman, a writer, political analyst and the former president of the board of trustees of the Iraqi Media Network, told Al-Monitor, “Emigration has subsided for the time being and it has diminished in intensity because the young people in Iraq are busy volunteering as fighters. … There are no precise statistics on emigration and counter-migration. … Talk about a high emigration rate for Iraqi youth is politically motivated and is intended to portray Iraq as a country that is unsafe or one that is going through an unnatural condition.”

In the same context, Jawad al-Shammari, the director of the information office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Iraq, told Al-Monitor, “The pace of emigration has dropped following the religious fatwa to conduct jihad against IS on June 10, 2014, because it made a lot of young people think about defending their country. So they joined the Popular Mobilization Units to fight [IS].”

(Brain Drain image via Shutterstock)