ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Families in the Kurdistan Region whose loved ones were trying to make the crossing from France to the United Kingdom in recent days are increasingly anxious for their well-being as French authorities begin the grim process of identifying the bodies of 27 people, including three children, who drowned on Wednesday as they attempted to cross the English Channel.
Initial reports are that most of the migrants were Kurds. Kurdish migration activist Ranj Peshdari, speaking to Rudaw English from Germany, said all of the dead are from the Kurdistan Region, with most having made the journey to Europe from the Peshdar region in Sulaimani province.
Peshdari has been in close contact with those on the ground in France.
“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.
NEW: We have obtained this photo of the remains of the flimsy dinghy that sank in the Channel. This is all that was left when rescuers arrived
— Adam Parsons (@adamparsons) November 25, 2021
@SkyNews
@SophGarratt pic.twitter.com/R0lze0VvZB
With news breaking of the mass drowning, Peshdari has been contacted by numerous families in the Kurdistan Region, all anxiously seeking information about the dead. “Nobody has yet been identified,” Peshdari said.
Rudaw English spoke to the brother of a young man who was going to make the crossing to the UK on Wednesday. His family is extremely anxious as they have not heard from him since he left France.
“We are just praying that he has safely arrived in the UK and will make contact with us soon,” his brother, who did not want to be identified, told Rudaw English from Sulaimani.
The tragedy was the largest single loss of life in the Channel since the International Organization for Migration (IOM) began collecting figures in 2014, the project working to track the number of deaths along migratory routes said on Wednesday.
The public prosecutor’s office in Lille, where an investigation has been opened into the deaths, said the victims who are assumed to have come from the Dunkirk camp of Grande-Synthe were “mostly Kurds, from Iraq or Iran.”
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.
Initial reports suggested that 31 people died after embarking on the crossing; a figure that now stands at 27, including a pregnant woman. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced on Thursday that five suspects have been arrested in connection with the incident.
Thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region have left the country this year for Europe. Young people have spoken of leaving the country in search of jobs and opportunities they feel they cannot access at home where unemployment is high and political tensions, corruption and instability leave them with little hope for their future.
But they have ended up in perilous situations, trapped in European political disputes and standoffs. Since the summer, many have travelled to Belarus with the hope of reaching western Europe. However, most have gotten stuck on Belarus’ borders with Poland and Lithuania, who have in turn fortified their frontiers and accused Minsk of using the migrants as a pressure tool to force Europe to ease sanctions.
In an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt on Thursday, PM Masrour Barzani described his surprise at the increasing numbers of Iraqi Kurds at the Polish border. "We didn't notice what was going on," he said. Later in the interview, he acknowledged that the Region required “support for necessary reforms in the fight against corruption."
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has acknowledged the issues driving people to leave the country, but continue to attribute blame to “the smugglers who send people to their deaths.”
People smugglers have been widely accused of profiting from a lack of safe and legal routes to the UK. The British government’s proposed Nationality and Borders Bill would dramatically amend the current system of seeking asylum in the UK, and has been criticised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for failing to uphold the UK’s international obligations.
The UK has given 54 million pounds to fund French patrols on the coast over the course of this year. The British immigration minister Tom Pursglove urged France to reconsider a previous offer to send UK police and border officers to France to mount joint patrols; an offer rejected on reasons of sovereignty.
According to the IOM, in 2021 almost 26,000 people have so far crossed the Channel in small boats; over three times the number of successful crossings in 2020, and ten times the 2019 figure. Ten others have died while attempting the journey in recent weeks.
The situation facing those boarding small and often unsuitable boats from France is increasingly precarious, with smugglers mistreating the most vulnerable in desperate conditions. According to Thomas Gilbert, an activist working in Dunkirk, “smuggling gangs are very prevalent and gun violence is common, usually as a show of control within the camps.”
Hours before people boarded a boat on Wednesday, “a young man in his early 20 was shot twice in the knee,” Gilbert posted on Wednesday.
“The man was shot because he would not get on a boat last night because he was scared, because as we hear smugglers get paid half before and half on arrival to the UK and the smugglers had lost out on easy money.”
Other activists are outraged at the way the British government is treating those in France, and believe that they must take immediate action to alleviate suffering.
Maddie Harris, founder of the UK Humans For Rights Network, told Rudaw English by email that, “Urgent action must be taken to ensure no more lives are lost as a result of border violence.”
“For years, the UK government has actioned policies that further militarise the UK border. Millions have been spent on fences, walls and police patrols in an attempt to stop people seeking sanctuary from reaching the UK. This has not worked, and today, the most extreme consequence of these policies has been realised,” she added.
“Until the UK government focuses not on stopping people seeking safety in the UK, but on how to facilitate safe passage to the UK that eliminates the need for these treacherous journeys yet more people will die.”
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