In this Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015 photo, Mustafa Jassim Mohammed, 29, practices paddling with an arm maimed in a bombing as he swims in the Tigris River in preparation to face the danger of crossing the Mediterranean Sea, in the Azamiyah neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq. He knows that migrants -- men, women and children -- have died when their smuggler boats capsized, and he�s seen the heart-wrenching pictures of the drowned Syrian boy who washed ashore in Turkey last week. But he�s also seen the TV footage of hundreds of migrants making their way across Europe and being welcomed in certain quarters. After more than a decade of chaos and war, it�s a gamble he�s willing to take.
Hadi Mizban Associated Press