X. Deportations from Turkey Overland Deportations to Northern Iraq The Turkish authorities detain Iraqis who have been deported or summarily expelled from Greece until they gather a sufficient number to fill a bus. After transporting them to the Habur crossing point on the Iraqi border, the Turkish authorities turn the Iraqis over to the Kurdish regional authorities.137 According to the following testimonies, the Kurdish authorities sometimes imprison and abuse the returnees. A 21-year-old Iraqi Kurd from Kirkuk gave the following account of the arduous bus ride to Iraq and his subsequent imprisonment and torture by the Kurdish regional authorities in northern Iraq: At the end of January, beginning of February 2004, they took 84 Iraqis from Edirne on two buses. The people on the bus were from all over Iraq. We were all handcuffed together in groups of two. We were handcuffed the whole time. We were not allowed to go to the toilet for a 34-hour bus trip. We were fed bread and water only three times in 34 hours. One guy fell down. They took him out of the bus. The bus stopped on the highway for the drivers and guards to eat and rest, but they wouldn’t let us out. At Silopi we crossed the bridge to northern Iraq. We were transferred from Turkish handcuffs to having the peshmergas [Kurdish troops] handcuff us. From the border, the peshmergas took us to Zakho. We were kept in Zakho for 15 or 16 days. Most people were held until relatives came to pick them up. For those from Baghdad and outside the north, they would send a message to check their addresses. They would take those people to the Kurdish-Iraq border and release them there. I wouldn’t tell them why I left. They took me to another jail in Kirkuk where I was held for the next six months. 137 Habur is kn0wn as Ibrahim Khalil on the Iraqi side. 61 Human Rights Watch November 2008