At a refugee camp in the Netherlands, an Azerbaijani citizen facing deportation has committed suicide.
Fikrat Mahmudov had applied for asylum in the Netherlands after an unsuccessful attempt in Germany, and was living at a refugee camp in Leersum awaiting the decision.
“The Dutch government didn’t give [Mahmudov] asylum,” another Azerbaijani citizen at the same camp told Meydan TV. “Last night the police came to the camp to send him to Azerbaijan, but he didn’t want to go. He slashed his wrists with a razor he had.”
“We took him to the hospital at night, but we weren’t able to save his life,” said a third Azerbaijani citizen at the camp. “He died in the ambulance. His remains will be sent to Azerbaijan in the next few days.”
Fikrat Mahmudov is not the first Azerbaijani who has taken drastic measures not to return to his home country.
In January of this year, an Azerbaijani requesting asylum in Germany
resisted
the police as they tried to send him back to Azerbaijan. Taking a policeman’s gun, the man fired several times in the air and then took hostages while his wife stabbed herself with a knife.
In February, Kamala Imamaliyeva
attempted suicide
in the German city of Bamberg to avoid deportation to Azerbaijan.
In recent years, the number of citizens leaving Azerbaijan has been on the rise. Experts
link this trend
to economic and political conditions in the country.
