‘England is hope’: some say they will try again –
despite Channel deaths
Attempt to cross via overcrowded dinghy from Wimereux
aborted after engine stalls and five people drown
Daniel
Boffey
Daniel
Boffey in Wimereux
Tue 23 Apr
2024 20.32 BST
They could
have been on a school trip. Fifty teenagers from Vietnam, dressed for the
biting cold in puffer jackets, smart trainers and woolly beanies, sat on the
pavement by the bus shelter outside Gare Calais listening to music and watching
videos on their smartphones.
They were
waiting for the 423 bus to take them back to a forest outside Dunkirk, where
they have been staying at night with about a thousand others. It had been a
disappointing morning for the group.
Their
attempt to cross to the beaches of England on a dinghy from Wimereux, a quiet
coastal town 20 miles south of Calais, had been aborted at the last minute by
their handlers.
Five
people, including a seven-year-old girl, had drowned after being thrown from an
overcrowded boat shortly after leaving the French shore at around 5am.
A fight had
broken out on the vessel after those who hadn’t paid tried to board, aid
workers said.
There were
112 on a boat that would have been overcrowded with half that number.
The engine
had stalled and it was the weakest who lost out, thrown into the freezing
waters.
The child’s
father, an Iraqi, had been found by rescuers on the vessel cradling his
daughter. Her limp body had been recovered from the waves but she was
unresponsive.
Not that
this was the information passed to the Vietnamese.
“The police
took a knife to the boat so we couldn’t go”, said a 17-year-old among the
group, who said she could not give her name.
Did she not
know that what she was attempting could be fatal – indeed had been that very
morning? That the drownings brought the death toll to 15 in the Channel this
year?
“It will be
OK, I think the tide is OK,” she said. At her feet were a few luminous
lifejackets that she had found by the side of the road and brought with her.
Was she
aware that the British government had passed a law just a few hours earlier
under which she was liable to be deported to Rwanda on arrival in the UK?
“I heard
some information”, she said. “Can you tell me more about Rwanda?”
Nothing
that could be said trumped her hope.
“We are
illegal here, we don’t have any papers,” the girl said. But would she have
papers in Britain? “I can’t say, I can’t say,” she added, as one of the four
Middle Eastern men standing close by loomed into view. “This is my crisis.”
It had been
described as a political win for Rishi Sunak on Monday night when the House of
Lords finally backed down after months of parliamentary to-and-fro over the
Rwanda scheme.
A first
tranche of people to be deported to the central eastern African country this
July will be identified by a team of case workers in the coming weeks.
The
government’s belief is that their threat of deportation to Rwanda on arrival in
Britain will be believed over the promise of a new and better life made by
smugglers.
It is an
attempt to pitch a new hard reality – deportation to Rwanda – against the hope
and lived experience of those turning up in significant numbers on the French
coastline: the young Vietnamese and the hundreds of others from Iraq, Sudan,
Eritrea and elsewhere who had also been turned around from Wimereux at the last
moment on Tuesday morning.
The
calculation at the moment is clear. Those trudging back to the “jungle” outside
Dunkirk on Tuesday night said they were under threat of being sent back home
while on mainland Europe.
They knew
of people who had made it to England and not returned and even sent money back.
They had
been chased to the end of the road. “England is hope”, said Walid, a
30-year-old Iraqi, who said he would try to cross in the coming weeks. “I will
try my luck. I can’t stay here”.
Dany
Patoux, a volunteer for the French charity, Osmose 62, had been at the beach
when the body of the young girl and her father were brought to shore.
She had
seen the man at least three times before, at this beach and in Bologne, with
his wife and two younger children.
Each
previous attempt to cross had been foiled by the police.
“He fell
into our arms and was in tears,” Patoux said of the morning’s horror. “He saw
his daughter die in front of him.”
Yet, the
rest of the man’s young family had stayed on the boat. Indeed, after the dead
had been recovered and 47 others had voluntary got on to a rescue boat, the
dinghy had carried on its journey with scores more to England.
In the face
of unimaginable horror, some of those on that vessel had maintained belief in a
better life on the other side of the choppy waters.
“In all the
countries they have crossed before, either they were tortured or persecuted,
threatened with being deported, and the conditions here are not worthy of
animals,” said Patoux. “What they are hoping in crossing to England is to find
shelter, to find warmth.
“They have
heard about the law from Rwanda but they know it takes time to be active so
they are willing to take that risk, to get there before it is in place.”
The
scramble to get on the boat that morning may have been in part because people
were concerned to get to England before the Rwandan flights started, Patoux
suggested.
“But I
don’t think anything [will] change when it is law,” she said. “Most of them
have family members there or they hear that people do stay and do help back
home financially. They are not hopeless.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário