In Iraq, Kamal Mahmood was a doctor, and in Greece, he was just a poor asylum seeker, struggling in makeshift huts.

After 17 months of trying to stay in Greece, Kamal Mahmood, 44, and his family decided to return to Iraq, the country they once paid $ 12,000 to leave.

"Don't lose it," a UN immigration officer said as he handed Mahmood a brochure at Athens Airport. "These are the tickets to return to Iraq."

"Understood," said Mahmood, holding a ticket and a temporary passport listing his wife and four children. On the passport there is the word "one way".

He and his family repatriated on a program sponsored by Greece and the European Union. Thanks to this program, about 16,900 people have made the trip back to Africa, Asia or the Middle East in the past three years, in the context of EU countries tightening borders and imposing stricter requirements on the situation. legal with immigrants.

Many migrants feel that leaving Europe is a mistake, but they don't have the money to go home by themselves. Even migrants who are refused asylum are rarely forced to deport.

Greece is trying to give them a way out: a system of deportation on a voluntary basis. Some immigrants choose to go home because they were refused asylum. Some have to surreptitiously work for low wages. Others are simply fed up with being trapped in makeshift camps in Greece, where human rights groups criticize them as overcrowded and unhygienic.

Those who decide to repatriate "feel they have had enough," said Gianluca Rocco, head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Greece, who runs the program.

IOM provides migrants wishing to repatriate travel documents, airline tickets and several hundred EUR cash. Some people may be given 1,500 EUR to find a job or start a business in the countryside.

But repatriation decisions also show that Europe has failed to help those seeking asylum or seek new life opportunities. The Mahmood had chosen to return to Iraq's Kurdish Autonomous Region before the Greek authorities concluded their application for asylum.

The last night in Europe, Kamal Mahmood only slept for two hours, thinking about the reason the whole family was led to Greece. Their eldest son died of leukemia and Mahmood blamed Iraq's medical system. Mahmood's wife, suffering from a child loss, rarely left home. At the same time, Mahmood was demoted at the hospital due to a tense relationship with the Kurdish party that governs the autonomous region.

The family thinks that Europe will be a new beginning. "That's a way to forget the pain," Mahmood said.

They did not anticipate that the "new home" in Greece would be a remote camp, where quarrels and clashes between groups sometimes broke out at night. Sometimes families have to move their tents to the gate to ensure safety. The children go to school but only in the afternoon, after the indigenous students leave. These classes also cannot guarantee quality because they mix children of many ages and from many countries.

Many migrants have decided to repatriate, including Sheharyar Sultan, 24, a pharmacist in Pakistan who is working as an orange picker in Greece for 20 EUR a day. Mamdouh Awad, 24, Moroccan, spends most of his time in Greece at a migrant camp on the island of Lesbos, where people drink alcohol on winter nights just to stay warm.

The Mahour family from Iran twice tried to move further north into Europe with a fake passport. Both times they were blocked and then denied asylum in Greece. Their 17-year-old daughter, who became a theater artist in Athens, has tattoos and piercings. One-year-old son was born in Greece with a very Western name Nelson. Now they decided to return to Iran.

"When I return to Iran, I don't know if I will be fired or imprisoned," said Habib Mahour, a 42-year-old construction worker. But I know that I cannot get papers here. I accept to face anything ahead. We are too tired in Greece. "

Greece is the gateway to Europe for migrants who cross the Turkey. However, few people really want to stay in Greece. When the wave of immigrants to Europe peaked in 2015, migrants after arriving in Greece quickly moved north, through the Balkans to rich countries like Germany and Sweden.

However, neighboring Greece subsequently tightened policies, closing roads to prevent migrants from leaving the country. More than one million migrants have arrived in Greece since 2015, of which about 240,000 have applied for asylum.

One option for Greece is to return immigrants to Turkey and they were hoping to do this with a EUR 6 billion deal in 2016 between the EU and Turkey. However, the deal was not effective. Migrants still have the right to claim asylum in Greece, meaning they can stay for several years while waiting for the application to be reviewed. Since Turkey and the EU reached an agreement, more than 100,000 immigrants have traveled from Turkey to Greece. Less than 2,000 people were returned.

The Greek government says it intends to increase the pressure on Turkey. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said most of the people who came to Greece recently were on economic migration rather than asylum.

Regardless of their status, migrants must live in poor conditions. They stay in huts and containers, surrounded by rubbish and sewage. Activists say Greece has plenty of time to improve the conditions of the camps but does not intentionally do so, as a measure to prevent migration to the country.

However, that preventive measure did not work. The number of migrants to Greece is increasing again, and 31,000 migrants are crammed into temporary shelters designed for 6,000 people. In September, at Moria camp, an old army barracks was converted into a temporary shelter by a Greek woman, an Afghan woman died from a fire, leading to riots and protests. The immigrants held up the board with the words "Moria is hell".

At this camp and even those with better conditions, IOM is trying to advise migrants to repatriate. According to UN guidelines, migrants must not return to Syria, Palestine, Yemen or other areas deemed too dangerous, so people from these countries cannot participate in the program. Meanwhile, people from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan can return home and they line up every morning outside IOM headquarters in Athens to apply.

In the meantime, those without money are allowed to stay in a temporary accommodation in the center of Athens operated by IOM, which is utilized from an abandoned office building. Mahours from Iran in room 108 and Mahmoods from Iraq in room 106.

"It will be a long day," Kamal Mahmood told his children on the final morning in Europe. They arrived at Athens airport with four travel bags, two worn suitcases and a stroller.

Waiting for check-in, 19-year-old Chrakhan Mahmood surfed Facebook to view photos of fighting in the Kurdish-controlled area in Syria. "Look," she said as she held up the picture of a dead person.

Mahmood did not expect the fighting to spread to Iraq. But Syrian refugees are likely to come and that is one of the factors that can make a difference. How will your child adapt? Can he continue to be a doctor?

"If I can find something good for my children here, I will stay," he said. "But I can't. So maybe going back is a better option."

His family soon boarded the boarding gate and arrived home at dawn to start life again in the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq, which now seems to be worse than Greece.