| Sure it is. |
Milad is an Arab from Ahvaz, Khuzestan province. He left Iran, his parents, and his sisters behind three years ago in the hope of forging a better life for himself in the European Union.
“The Iranian government does not allow people in our region to speak our own language,” he told IranWire. “In general, the government does not want us. We cannot speak the Arabic language or wear our traditional clothes. We can only find work selling vegetables at the market, as all the better jobs are taken by people from other parts of Iran. There is no future for us there. That’s why I left.”
Several other people share a room with Milad, and the whole dilapidated building is full of migrants and refugees, mostly from Pakistan. According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, around 8,000 refugees and migrants are currently in Bosnia, which is located on one of the principal routes to the EU from West Asia. Between 2019 and the end of 2020, the UNHCR reports that 4,933 Iranians have come to southeastern Europe. From here, they generally try to cross the border into Croatia to head toward Italy, but the Croatian border police prevent many of them from crossing.
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