Shocking survivor testimony of Deaths in the Channel Refugee drowning
Hat tip to Spotlight Newspaper
Most of the mainstream media and of course
the BBC has ignored this story. The 27 refugees who drowned in The Channel last
week (3 are still missing) could have been saved. They phoned both the British and
French Police and told them of their plight and where they were but instead of
organising a rescue, both sets of authorities told them they were in the others’
country. There were just 2 survivors.
For 12 hours the refugees were alive and
freezing but the callous bastards on both sides of the Channel preferred them
to drown rather than organise a rescue.
No doubt Priti Patel is very happy at the outcome as it means 32 less refugees
in this country.
These refugees have a right to seek
refuge in this country. As the late Ambalavaner Sivanandan said
‘We are here because you were there. These
and other refugees are the consequence of the wars we wage in the Middle East and
elsewhere. It is the least we can do to welcome them here by way of recompense
for what we have done in their countries.
Tony Greenstein
In an article French and British
police ignored drowning migrants in Channel, says survivor The Telegraph reported
that
A survivor of the Channel boat tragedy claimed on
Sunday that migrants phoned both French and British police forces but their
pleas for help were ignored - leaving
them to drown.
Mr Zada, 21, who had a
miraculous escape after being treated for hypothermia, said: “We called UK police, they didn’t help us. We called the French
police and they said: ‘you are in UK territory’.”
“We were holding each other’s hands. We were almost fine until dawn. Then most of them gave up their lives. The whole night nobody died. Until dawn when many of them let go of the remaining bit of the boat and gave up their lives.”
21yr old Kurdish refugee,
Mohammed Shekha Ahmad, described how, after the boat started to deflate and
take on water, "Some people
started to pump air while others were emptying water from the boat"
but the boat continued to sink. Ahmad explains how they had actually managed to
contact both the French and British police but the authorities were squabbling
over who should be responsible for sending help…
We called the French police and asked
them to help us.. The pump was defective. We sent our location to the French
police, and they said, you are inside British water… So, we were inside the
British water and called the British police for help, but they said call the
French police.
Ahmad then described how
the boat sank and they all tried to hold each other’s hands ‘in order not to sink or drown’
but after a few hours in the freezing cold water ‘the people couldn't take it anymore… They all gave up on their lives’
Somalian refugee,
Muhammad Isa Omar, then described how neither the British nor the French
coastguard were responding to their cries for help..
We had jackets which included cell
phones. We called France and Britain several times, but we mostly called
Britain. 'Help us! Help us!' we said… They said, 'Send us the location.' But we
did not have the chance [to send the coordinates] and all cell phones dropped
into the water.
Omar said he was left partially
paralysed after sustaining injuries from being left to swim in the water for 10
hours.
Vigil held for Channel deaths
He said both the British and French
coastguard did not respond to their cries for help.
‘No one came,’
he told Rudaw.
‘The boat was capsizing and people were dying. I swam for ten hours in
the sea.’
He added: ‘We had jackets which included cell phones. We called France and Britain
several times, but we mostly called Britain. 'Help us! Help us!’ we said.
He said 33 passengers climbed into
the boat between 7pm and 8pm but that a faulty pump caused it to fill with
water almost immediately.
Mr Amad gave a similar account, and
said they managed to make contact with French and British police before the
boat capsized but that authorities on either side disagreed about who should
send help.
‘We called the French police and asked them to help us,’ he said.
Bodies were found floating in French
waters, a few miles from the coast, more than 12 hours later - prompting a French fisherman
to send out a mayday signal.
Mr Amad was treated for hypothermia
in France. He explained the ‘only reason’
he was trying to reach Britain was to earn money to pay for medical treatment
for his sister in India.
When the boat had first started
flooding, the passengers debated flagging down a ship they spotted in the
Channel but decided not to as they wanted to reach Britain.
Mr Amad identified the Rzgar family,
from an autonomous Kuridsh region of Iraq, as being on the boat with him to
reporters.
Kazhal Rzgar, 46, her daughters Hadya,
22, and Hasta, seven, and sons Twana, 19, and Mubin, 16, are all thought to
have drowned.
Baran Nouri Mohammedameen didn't tell her fiancé she was about to board a boat to make the crossing until the last minute
Just a week before the tragedy they
had given a media interview in which they spoke of their dream of starting a
new life in Britain.
Recent arrivals
in France say they will continue their journey to the UK, despite the deaths of
fellow Iraqi migrants on Wednesday.
Among the dead publicly identified
are a pregnant woman, children and a 24-year-old Kurdish woman from northern
Iraq trying to reunite with
her fiancé.
A Home Office spokesperson said:
The French led a search and
rescue operation for an incident that occurred in French Territorial waters on
Wednesday 24 November, where 27 people tragically died.
As part of this operation,
the French requested support from the UK, which was provided by HMG Coastguard
as soon as it was requested.
Channel crossings: Victims 'held hands in order not to drown' after boat capsized on way to Britain
Look at Lebanon if you want to know what happens to a society that takes more and more migrants.
ReplyDeleteAre you suggesting that if we save people from drowning in the Channel Israel will come and bomb us back into the stone age?
DeleteThis is a particularly stupid comment. Lebanon's problems are engineered from the outside by the USA to force Hezbollah out of the government. In addition of course to war in Syria which caused the influx of large numbers of refugees. Also a consequence of Saudi and US arming of Jihadi groups
DeleteIf we don't want to import refugees, we should stop exporting arms! Wars and bloody conflicts are fuelled by arms exports. Governments should take responsibility for the consequences of their actions and policies.
ReplyDeleteYes absolutely. Therein lies the hypocrisy
DeleteA curious and very facile "thought", Peter.
DeleteGreece and Italy export practically no arms but have a large refugee problem.
Russia ad China, on the other hand, export loads of arms (especially of the smaller, deadlier low-tech kind) and yet have absolutely no refugee problem.
Why should that be, I wonder? Whatever the answer is, I doubt it has anything to do with arms exports.
Yes it is a 'facile' i.e. a moronic thought since it explains nothing.
DeleteBritain and the US not only export arms they export wars. Indeed they start wars and wars produce refugees.
Not only Greece and Italy but Lebanon and also Turkey have a massive refugee influx. Although Turkey has a large arms industry the reason why they and the other countries you mention, including Lebanon, have large numbers of refugees are that they are adjacent to Syria or on the road to the West. Conveniently the USA and Britain are protected by water.
Russia and China don't start wars and China isn't involved in any either.
This is heartbreaking, devastating, unbearably tragic. These people were left to die. Obscene! Cruel!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to wipe that smug grin from Priti Patel's face.
Germany let in about 1 million refugees in 2015. After taking account the different sized populations, the equivalent for the UK would be roughly 600,000 refugees.
DeleteDo you think, Mary, that the UK should immediately open its doors to over half a million refugees?
Have you any suggestions as to hos and where they should be housed and employed and how the children should be educated?
Would you, for example, be willing to offer temporary house room to a refugee family?
It’s time to cut out the hysteria and take a sober look at some of the claims made in this article.
ReplyDeleteIn the first place the authority responsible for search and rescue on both sides of the Channel is the Coastguard, and not the police. That The Telegraph should think otherwise merely underlines why it is so frequently an unreliable source of information.
However the Sky News article which is hyperlinked here, reports that a French LIFEBOAT (i.e. NOT a fishing boat) responded to a Mayday call that 15 people had fallen into the water in the middle of the Channel. That article in turn links to another which begins “A mayday call by French coastguard requesting urgent help from "all ships" during yesterday's Channel boat emergency has been obtained by Sky News”. This second article also contains a video recording of the French Coastguard call “requesting urgent assistance from ‘all ships’ in the area”.
So, irrespective of the allegation made by Muhammad Isa Omar, the French Coastguard had made an appropriate response to the emergency (presumably because it was occurring in French waters) and as a result an SNSM lifeboat had been despatched but had arrived too late to rescue survivors.
What is not mentioned among the lurid claims of murder is that the migrant boat should never have put to sea at all. Sky News quotes lifeboatman Charles Davos saying that the boat was about 10 metres long, and was completely unsuited to the choppy waters of the Channel. By the time the lifeboat arrived, it had deflated and had become simply a piece of useless plastic. "Was it a valve that came loose or did it hit something? We may never really know, but I don't think it was a collision".
More likely it would seem, the boat was in an unfit condition to go to sea. Typically, it would have been grossly overloaded, like the one in the photograph juxtaposed behind Priti Patel. Almost certainly it would not have had a safety inspection. In summation it was not fit for the voyage it was undertaking nor the cargo it was carrying. Nor were its passengers appropriately clad for the trip.
Desperate people undertake desperate deeds, but when this leads to disaster it is unfair to blame the emergency services for not arriving in time. (The Channel is a large area of water in which to search for a group of people adrift in choppy conditions without distress signals and high viz clothing.) Priti Patel may be an evil witch, but to blame all this on her and the British or French authorities is scandalmongering worthy of the British gutter press.
More facts and less hysteria another time please Tony.
Richard your comments are correct. The boat should never have put to sea but it did. The refugees were desperate to get to Britain, the cause of their plight in the first place given our role in the wars that forced them to emigrate.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that they phoned the French and British police in the first instance and that they squabbled as to whose responsibility it was
I certainly agree that British imperial meddling, current and past, has had devastating effects on people in so many countries throughout the world. I don't have any good answers, but I do acknowledge that the western world has a serious debt to its victims.
DeleteAnd you're a gent Tony, who prints my comments complete and unexpurgated, and then writes a polite reply.
‘We are here because you were there. These and other refugees are the consequence of the wars we wage in the Middle East and elsewhere. It is the least we can do to welcome them here by way of recompense for what we have done in their countries.
ReplyDelete"First we bomb then, then we ban them...
A very weak "reply", Tony. You're determined to shit on the French and UK (mostly UK) authorities, aren't you. How about doing a little bit of shitting on the human traffickers?
ReplyDeleteIt's no wonder Anonymous that you daren't not reveal your name as it would expose your stupidity.
DeleteI'm not 'shitting' on anyone, to use your anally retentive terminology.
The British and French are responsible more than anyone for this tragedy. The traffickers wouldn't exist if the Western powers faced up to their responsibility. Where there is demand under capitalism there is supply. Strange how traffickers are singled out by you and not those responsible.
This 'argument' was used during the war to say that if we 'encourage' Jewish refugees to enter Britain then we will simply encourage those who supply leaky boats to keep supplying them.
The same racist argument from the same racists who don't like us 'shitting' on their racist friends. Anon prefers to shit on the most vulnerable instead