31 die in deadliest migrant boat tragedy between France, UK

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Boat tragedy off France

At least 31 migrants died Wednesday crossing from France to England when their boat sank off the port of Calais, French authorities said, the deadliest disaster since the Channel became a major part of the migrant route

President Emmanuel Macron, saying France would not allow the Channel to become a "cemetery", vowed to find out who was responsible for the tragedy as prosecutors opened a manslaughter probe.

"It is Europe's deepest values - humanism, respect for the dignity of each person - that are in mourning," Macron said.

The French leader also called for an emergency meeting of "European ministers faced with the migration challenge", with his Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin urging a "tough international response".

Darmanin announced that four people suspected of being "directly linked" to the accident have been arrested.

Prime Minister Jean Castex is to convene several of his ministers for a crisis meeting early on Thursday, his office said.

French officials said earlier three helicopters and three boats had searched the area, uncovering corpses and people unconscious in the water, after a fisherman sounded the alarm.

The victims were among around 50 people aboard a vessel that had set out from Dunkirk east of Calais, according to the police.

On the other side of the Channel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was "shocked, appalled and deeply saddened by the loss of life at sea", following a crisis meeting with senior officials.

The disaster, the worst single loss of life since at least 2018 when migrants began using boats en masse to cross the Channel, comes as tensions grow between London and Paris over the record numbers of people crossing.

Britain has urged tougher action from France to stop migrants from making the voyage.

- Winter warning -

Pierre Roques, coordinator of the Auberge des Migrants NGO in Calais, said the Channel risked becoming as deadly for migrants as the Mediterranean which has seen a much heavier toll over the last years of migrants crossing.

"People are dying in the Channel, which is becoming a cemetery. And as England is right opposite, people will continue to cross."

According to the French authorities, 31,500 people attempted to leave for Britain since the start of the year and 7,800 people have been rescued at sea, figures which doubled since August.

In Britain, Johnson's government is coming under intense pressure, including from its own supporters, to reduce the numbers crossing.

Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for the British Channel port of Dover called the sinking "an absolute tragedy" and demonstrated the need to stop the crossings at source.

"As winter is approaching the seas will get rougher, the water colder, the risk of even more lives tragically being lost greater," she said.

- 'A business' -

France's top maritime official for the northern coast Philippe Dutrieux told AFP in an interview last week that the numbers trying to cross had doubled in the last three months.

He blamed the "cynicism" of the traffickers "who throw migrants into the water as it is a business that makes money".

"It has been years that we have been warning about the dangers of the situation", said Charlotte Kwantes, head of Utopia56, an association that works with migrants in Calais.

She put at "more than 300" the number of migrants who have died since 1999 in the area.

"As long as safe passages are not put in place between England and France, or as long as these people cannot be regularised in France... there will be deaths at the border," she told AFP.

In Britain, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, said the deaths were "heartbreaking" and safe routes were needed for those "in desperate need of protection".

According to British authorities, more than 25,000 people have now arrived illegally so far this year, already triple the figure recorded in 2020.

The issue has added to growing post-Brexit tensions between Britain and France, with a row on fishing rights also still unresolved.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/world/24112021

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A day I always feared

The Minister for Immigration Compliance, Tom Pursglove, told BBC Two's Newsnight it had been a "thoroughly depressing day" that he "always feared"

He said "the simple truth is that people should not be putting their lives in the hands of evil people smugglers to come to the United Kingdom leaving what are safe countries in order to get here".

"But of course I think the clear message that comes out of today is that we must re-double our efforts, working collaboratively to address this issue and make this route unviable," he added.

Asked if he would like to see France's northern shore patrolled by UK officers, Pursglove said "we need to go further, we need to deepen that collaboration and that cooperation".

"It is the case that in the past we have offered to host and help with joint patrols and I think that could be invaluable in helping to address this issue and I really do hope the French reconsider that offer."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-59406632

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Kurdish woman drowned

A 24-year old woman from Dargala village in Erbil province was among the 27 people who drowned in the English Channel on Wednesday, Rudaw learnt on Friday, after she left the Kurdistan Region earlier this month to join her fiancé in the United Kingdom

Baran Nuri Hamadamin died while trying to cross the English Channel in an inflatable small boat, Krmanj Izzat, whose cousin is Baran’s father and a veteran Peshmerga, told Rudaw on Friday.

“After seeing her dead body [on his mobile], we have confirmed that she has died,” said Izzat who is the former mayor of Soran district, now an independent administration.

One of Baran’s cousins, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, provided Rudaw English with details of her situation.

Baran became engaged to a Kurdish man from the UK earlier this year. Although her fiancé has British citizenship, the young woman had planned to illegally enter the country in order to join him.

She left Dargala village in northeast Erbil on November 2, joining two other Kurdish women who were also attempting to reach the UK to be with their fiancés.

The three arrived in Italy after travelling to Turkey on the same day. From there, they went to Germany, a country that thousands of other Iraqi Kurds have been attempting to reach over recent months as they look to escape despair, corruption, and repression, among other reasons.

Four days later, the women took a train to France. There, they met with Haval, the fiancé of one of the women, Muhabad, who helped them take the boat and waited for them on the English side of the Channel, according to Baran’s cousin. They never arrived.

“After failing to hear any news from them, he looked for them and later found out that the bodies of Muhabad [his fiancée] and Baran were among the dead,” said Ezzat.

Karzan migrated to the UK some years ago, and now works as a barber in Bournemouth. He returned to the Kurdistan Region in 2021 and became engaged to Baran in January. Karzan has UK citizenship but did not take his fiancée “because they were told that it [process of sponsoring spouse] would take up to six years,” said the cousin.

Baran and Karzan had planned to hold their wedding in the UK.

“After arriving [in France], we had no news of them for a few days,” Baran’s father told Rudaw’s Bakhtyar Qadir, calling on the Kurdistan Region authorities to help return the dead body of his daughter.

“They are kept in a hospital [morgue] in France for now,” he said.

Following the tragic death of the 27, most of whom are believed to be Kurds, France and the UK have called for new measures to limit migration across the Channel, although the countries are embroiled in a political dispute over what steps should be taken.

President Emmanuel Macron has criticised British PM Boris Johnson for tweeting an open letter of British requests to France on Thursday, with the French government cancelling talks between the two nations on the migrant crisis.

Kurdish migration activist Ranj Peshdari, speaking to Rudaw English from Germany, said most of the dead are from the Kurdistan Region, having made the journey to Europe from the Peshdar region in Sulaimani province.

“I’ve been told by people in Dunkirk that none of these individuals had life vests,” Peshdari recounted. “Despite this, the smuggler, a Dutch-Kurd, sent them on their way and promised them that their journey would be short.”

La Voix du Nord, a local paper on the northern French coast, reported that the inflatable boat carrying those who died was hit by a large ship. A fishing boat reported bodies close to English waters.

Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani tweeted his condolences on Thursday, saying he was “deeply saddened by the tragic loss of 27 innocent lives in the English Channel last night.”

“Some of the victims appear to be Kurds. We are working to establish their identities. Our thoughts are with their families,” he said.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/261120211