“We wanted to go to Germany by any means necessary; I had heard that [they were] good to refugees. I had a car in Iraq and I owned a store for repairing bicycles and motorbikes; I sold everything to collect US$20,000. During Ramadan in 2016, my wife, my brother and I went to Turkey by bus. From there we paid a smuggler to take us to Greece and Bulgaria.

From Bulgaria we walked for two and a half days to reach Germany, but we were caught by the Bulgarian police and put in jail for four days before being released. We walked through forests during the cold season. We paid a lot of money to the first smuggler, and spent a lot during the journey as well.

We eventually spent six months in a refugee camp in Frankfurt. I tried to find a job but my child, who was born in Germany, got sick several times and we were in hospitals often; it was a very stressful time for me. On top of that, my brother was moved to another camp seven hours away from us. That made us all very frustrated.

My mother had an accident here in Iraq, which forced me to come back. I contacted IOM to support my return and, about seven months after that, [the three of us] left Germany in 2017.

IOM helped my wife and I travel back to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and helped Dler re-open my bicycle and motorbike repair shop in Dohuk. When I returned, I had to start from scratch because I had spent every cent [getting] to Germany and during the six-month stay; thanks to the shop I did not have to struggle a lot. I work [in the shop] five days a week, and on the weekends I go to Erbil to buy parts and bicycles at wholesale prices, which are lower than prices here in Dohuk. I sell these in my store.