Vivienne Clarke
The brother of the Kurdish family killed in the crash on the M6 near Ballinasloe last Thursday first read of the road traffic collision on a Kurdish Facebook group which subsequently confirmed the tragic details.
Hiwa Wahab, co-founder of Kurdish Art Nergez Group Ireland and Kurdish Radio Ireland told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that the brother of Karzan Sabah learned about the crash when he read about the car crash on the Kurdish organisation's Facebook page
“He was concerned about the news. I believe someone called him and told him that Karzan had been missing for nearly 20 hours. His phone was switched off, so they asked us to do some research about this.
“We took a few details from them, and we started to make phone calls to the gardaí and to the hospital and our branch in Galway. Three hours later, unfortunately, we had received the bad news and that's when we shared it with the family.”
Mr Sabah, his wife Shahen Qasm and their eight-month-old daughter Lena, who were killed in the collision, had been living in Ireland since 2017.
The family were getting ready to move to Carlow where Mr Sabah had a new job and from where they were returning having gone to seek new accommodation.
“The family arrived on a student visa to Ireland and Karzan was submitting his PhD research to the university. He had a plan to move to Carlow. On the day of the crash he was there to view a property to bring his family to Carlow and start a new life there.”
