Small boat migrant tells of the brutal regime that drove him to flee Iraq

AN asylum seeker who took six attempts to cross the Channel said he fled Kurdistan to escape violence wrought by a former London bouncer-turned ruler.

- BY RICHARD ASHMORE

Amed, whose name we have changed to protect relatives in his home country, arrived in the UK on August 11 after packing himself on to a dangerous dinghy with 84 other migrants.

Conditions were so bad during the crossing that Amed said people lost consciousness as their small boat was battered by waves.

The migrant, now living in a hotel in North West England, feared they could have capsized and drowned if they had not been rescued by UK Border Force.

But he was desperate to escape violence under Bafel Talabani, who grew up in Beckenham, southeast London, but who is now the President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. He has been accused of imprisoning and torturing political rivals.

TORTURED

Amed, who says he knew people who have been murdered, said the British government should be doing more to intervene after he fled violence in his homeland of the Sulaymaniyah region of Kurdish Iraq.