ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Tehran’s Visa Application Center is regularly packed as Iranians look for the safest way to escape their country’s worsening political and economic situation. Tensions with the US and crippling sanctions have caused many to search for a way out.



Mohammed Taha, 18, who is accompanied by his father, could be the luckiest person among the crowd. He has just secured a Schengen visa. Now is the time to leave the country, he says.



“I am not coming back, because I do not see any future in Iran. I am going to France,” Taha told Rudaw English on Thursday, sitting in the center’s cafeteria.



“I would like to study medicine in France,” he said. “My friends, too, are dreaming of leaving and finishing their studies abroad.”



He is adamant he will not come back.



“I will not return. There is rule of law in Europe. I am now happy for my future,” he said, but he is worried for those less fortunate. Taha believes his visa application was approved because he comes from a wealthy family.



Iranian authorities and media outlets refer to the flow of young, educated Iranians to the west as “the brain drain”.



Many of those killed on January 8 when Iran accidentally shot down a commercial airliner were young Iranians who were returning to universities in Canada after their winter break.



Javad Ghavam Shahidi, chairman of the High Council on Iranian Expatriates Affairs, estimates there are between five and six million Iranians now living abroad.



Farhang Mohammedi, an athlete from Iran’s Karaj, has traveled 50 kilometers to collect his passport from The Netherlands embassy. His visa application was rejected. He doesn’t know why.



“If I had received the visa, I would not come back,” Mohammedi said.



“I have a good monthly income, and submitted my ownership deeds of two shops and a house, yet they denied me a visa,” he said angrily. “I thought I would receive the Schengen visa.”



“I am sick and tired of this country. Life deteriorates day by day,” he said.



“Whoever gets a slightest glimmer of a chance, they will leave this country and never come back,” he said. “We live in a country that is engulfed by corruption and abundant crises.”



Denied a visa, Mohammedi says he will now try the far more dangerous option of trekking to Europe on foot.



“I must reach Europe at any cost,” he said. “I was introduced to a few smugglers to get me to Europe and I very well understand that smuggles are the type of people that must not be trusted.”



Most Iranians who have fled to the west in recent years were driven by political persecution and the country’s tough social and religious codes. Worsening economic conditions have only added to this trend.



Following years of devastating sanctions, which brought the Iranian economy to the verge of collapse, Iran signed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – better known as the Iran nuclear deal – with the US and other world powers.



In exchange for limiting its nuclear program, Iran was granted some sanctions relief.



However, in May 2018, the US withdrew from the JCPOA and reimposed sanctions in Iran. Although the sanctions primarily targeted Iran’s oil, petrochemical, and banking sectors, ordinary Iranians paid the heaviest price, with a weakening currency and spiraling cost of living.



A female employee at Tehran’s Visa Application Center, who did not wish to be identified due to restrictions on speaking to the media, told Rudaw English she has never seen the center so busy.



“I have been working at this center for five years now and it has never been as busy as it has been since the end of last year,” she said.



“The number of applicants has risen considerably over the past three years for Schengen and Canadian visas,” she added.



“The most desired countries that applicants apply for are Germany, France, and Greece,” she added. “Schengen visas have always been very difficult to secure.”



“Based on the applications we receive, it is the literate and elite groups of society who apply for visas. Many of them never come back,” she added.



With so many applications rejected, many Iranians and their families choose the far more dangerous option of migrating overland through Turkey, paying smugglers to take them to Greece by boat.



Mohammedi, who is now seriously considering the perilous Mediterranean crossing, put Rudaw English in contact with a smuggler via messaging app Telegram.



“For Germany, we charge each immigrant $7,500. For The Netherlands $8,000 and for the UK $15,000,” the smuggler said.



Traffickers have several methods for moving their human cargo, including forgery.



“We apply for a visa for them, making [fake] documents for them including bank statements and health insurance. But this way does not work all the time and often depends on luck,” the smuggler said.



Translated by Zhelwan Z. Wali, edited by Robert Edwards

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