Haid from Chatham House, originally from Syria

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Halawa, who is Anglo-Iraqi-Egyptian, argues that one of the main drivers of the influx of refugees is the disappearance of legal mechanisms for the entry of skilled workers into Europe.

“The fascinating thing for me – if I speak of the UK immigration point system and (Home Secretary) Priti Patel that it introduced – is that my father, as a trained surgeon who served the NHS for 40 years, would not have qualified for a work visa when he arrived here, ”says Halawa.

“The mechanisms by which we – in the developed world – have enabled people to learn and keep them here for the benefit of society are no longer available,” said Halawa.

, considers himself one of the lucky ones. Almost five years ago phone number library he was granted refugee status in the UK. He says the images of Syrians dying in the English Channel gave him mixed feelings of sadness and personal relief. He also believes that the migration of Syrians will continue unabated.

“When things (in Syria) started to get worse despite the decline in violence, it was then that the people who lived there were struck by the reality that things will never get better,” explains Haid. “This is why even those who refused to leave the country during the war now think that there is no other solution than to flee, because there is no light at the end of the tunnel. That’s it.”

At the same time, Haid feels like he arrived in the UK just in time. “You feel lucky to have succeeded before your window of opportunity, which was closing quickly, was closed forever,” he says.

Back in Erbil, Shoxan Hussein and her husband Ali Rasool believe the legal passage to Europe is closed for good. Rasool, director of a real estate company, and Hussein, an engineer, applied for a visa at the French embassy earlier this year, but say they never received a response.