“Here, I’ll die here mentally” – many Iraqis already want out of Finland
Tareq Thajeel Ajaj wants to return home to Iraq as soon as possible. He has worries about his family, but Finland has also been a dissapointment.
“I would be ready to go back home tomorrow,” says Tareq Thajeel Ajaj at the Otaniemi reception center in Espoo, Finland, who has withdrawn his asylum application. He is reportedly drawn home to Southern Iraq, upon his hearing his father is seriously ill, but above all from disappointment.
Finland was not what the human smugglers in the Mediterranean had promised. Four months spent in a reception center the young man is tired of inaction and Finnish food.
“I do not know how I will fare in Iraq, but here I will die mentally,” he says.
The Finnish government announced on Tuesday a wide program for asylum seekers. The Government program aims to break the uncontrolled flow of applicants into the country, to get the cost of management, and to integrate those granted asylum.
More and more Iraqis, however, cancel their own application for asylum, says the IOM (International Organization for Migration) at the Helsinki office.
“We have had this fall a terrible growth in the number of voluntary returnees,” says coordinator Julia Evans IOM.
