FREJUS, France, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The Kurdish refugees who staggered ashore when their
ship hit land on Saturday had no idea they had reached the French Riviera, a ritzy stretch of
coast more used to welcoming film stars and foreign tourists.

Tired and famished after their week-long ordeal packed like sardines into the holds of a
stinking ship, the hundreds of illegal immigrants looked dazed as they wandered ashore.

Whole families had come to share the dream of a new life in the West and rescue teams were
amazed to see 480 children clamber out of the bowels of the rusty old freighter.

"They thought they were going to Europe and were very surprised when they learnt they
were actually in France," said Daniel Chaze, a senior officer with the French Air and Border
Police who met some of the 910 refugees on Sunday.

They told him that they had paid smugglers between $200-$300 a head to take them across
the Iraqi border into Turkey and then paid up to $2,000 for passage overland and a place on
the East Sea freighter that eventually brought them to France.

"There was an Iraqi and Turkish mafia network behind all this," Chaze said.

Officials believe the East Sea was meant to drop the Kurds off in Italy but lost its way and
ran ashore in France.

PEOPLE SMUGGLING TO FLOURISH

The plight of the Kurds sparked fury in France and government ministers pledged to
intensify the fight against the growing human traffic which has brought a wave of
immigrants into Europe in the past decade.

But Kurds said violence and persecution in northern Iraq meant the trade was bound to
flourish.

"Northern Iraq today is a territory which appears to be protected by the westerners, but in
spite of that there are many conflicts," said Ali Dogan, a Kurdish spokesman for the
Mediterranean Committee for Human Rights.

He said Turkish forces regularly entered Iraq to pursue the outlawed Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK), which wants self-rule in southeastern Turkey.

"They say that they were victims of terror inflicted by these soldiers and they are caught in
the middle of it all. There was a war situation and they could no longer stay there," Dogan
told reporters after meeting some of the refugees.

The Kurdish migrants gave few details of their journey, saying that they never saw the faces
of the traffickers and the crew of the East Sea wore masks. But they said the voyage was
horrific.

"We were down in the holds. You couldn't tell if it was night or day. There wasn't even any
room to lie down," an immigrant in broken English.

"We couldn't tell how long we were in there because it was dark. We were hungry. It was
terrible. Now they say we are in France. We are very happy," said another.

Officials believe that given a chance most of refugees will try to leave France and make their
way to Britain to join family already there. That journey could prove even more horrific than
the one from Iraq.

Last June 58 Chinese immigrants were found suffocated in a lorry at the English port of
Dover.
*********************
The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com