Ali, 28, left his home in Iran to escape religious persecution. After being denied asylum in France, he made the decision to cross the Channel in a dinghy. He told the Guardian's Today in Focus podcast about his experience making the perilous crossing twice, in search of a better life
Young people who have made the dangerous journey tell why they have risked all to reach the UK
In the early hours of Thursday morning, a group of newly arrived refugees huddled together on the coast of Dover. The smugglers had not halted their trade in moving people across the Channel and, just hours after 27 people died on the perilous journey, they were back at work.
There is little evidence that the latest loss of life will deter others from making the dangerous journey. After the tragic drowning of the Kurdish family who tried to cross the Channel in October last year, two asylum seekers who survived told the Guardian that, despite being deeply traumatised, they continued trying to cross and not long after made it to the UK.
Continue reading...French president says: ‘We do not communicate on these issues by tweets’ after PM issues five-point plan via Twitter
President Emmanuel Macron has told Boris Johnson to “get serious” or remain locked out of discussions over how to curb the flow of people escaping war and poverty across the Channel.
In a further sign of an escalating diplomatic crisis since the deaths of 27 people on Wednesday, the French leader criticised the UK’s decision to issue a five-point plan via Twitter instead of conducting bilateral talks.
Continue reading...News of Channel deaths has reached camp, but many still plan to pay people smugglers huge amounts in hope of a better life
Everybody at the camp on the outskirts of Dunkirk, little more than a scrappy collection of tents with no toilets or running water, has heard about the 27 people who drowned on Wednesday.
Everybody knows the risks. But everybody says they still have the same plan, to try to get on a boat to the UK, because they do not believe that death will come to them – and because of their hope for a better life.
Continue reading...As officials grapple with crisis, even more Kurds are preparing to make dangerous journey to Europe
Were they driven to the freezing shores of Europe by desperation, or did several thousand Kurds instead make the dangerous journey in search of opportunity?
As officials in Iraqi Kurdistan grapple with what is driving a crisis that is thought to have led to scores of citizens drowning in the Channel on Wednesday, and thousands of others to brave precarious migrant routes to Europe, even more are preparing to leave.
Continue reading...Analysis: UK suggestions that the French are not exerting themselves enough belies a more complex situation
Behind Boris Johnson’s suggestions, in the wake of the Channel drownings, that France was not doing enough to stop small boat crossings, lies a more complex picture. There is a growing sense among charities and the French political class that policing, security and repression alone cannot solve the issue of refugees risking their life to reach the UK to claim asylum.
In the past year, with rising numbers of attempted small boat crossings across the perilous shipping lanes of the Channel, there has been a significant increase in policing and patrols along the French coast, with new surveillance equipment, reservists called in, and more than 600 police officers and gendarmes working 24 hours a day – increasingly at night – to patrol a 40-mile stretch of rugged coast. UK financing has already contributed to new technology and an increase in officers. In addition, asylum seekers sleeping rough are moved on nightly, with tents and sleeping bags confiscated and camps broken up.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron has stressed the need to develop 'stronger and responsible' partnerships with Britain and Europe after at least 27 people, including women and children, died on Wednesday trying to cross the Channel on an inflatable boat.
Speaking on Thursday, the French president said: 'When these men and women reach the shores of the Channel, it is already too late.'
British and French leaders have traded accusations after the tragedy
Home Office says 67,547 applications waiting to be dealt with, as ministers urged to drop ‘nationalist posturing’
Asylum claims made in the UK have risen to their highest level for nearly 20 years, according to new figures from the Home Office, as the head of the Refugee Council calls for less “nationalist posturing” over people fleeing war zones.
The backlog of cases waiting to be dealt with is also at a record high, with 67,547 people in the queue and more than 125,000 either waiting for a decision or due to be removed from the UK.
Continue reading...Charities say home secretary’s policy for small boats in Channel is unlawful under rights and maritime laws
Priti Patel is facing three legal challenges over her controversial plans to push back refugees on small boats in the Channel who are trying to reach the UK.
Several charities including Care4Calais and Channel Rescue are involved in two linked challenges arguing that Patel’s plans are unlawful under human rights and maritime laws. Freedom from Torture is involved in a third challenge.
Continue reading...Two survivors in intensive care as four are arrested over drownings in boat described as like ‘a pool you blow up in your garden’
At least thirty one people including five women and a young girl have died trying to cross the Channel to the UK in an inflatable dinghy, officials say, in what is the deadliest incident since the current crisis began.
Two survivors are in intensive care while police have arrested four people suspected of being linked to the drownings. The International Organisation for Migration said it was the biggest single loss of life in the Channel since it began collecting data in 2014.
Continue reading...UK home secretary addresses Commons after 27 people – including at least one pregnant woman and three children - drown off UK coast
The MP for Calais Pierre Henri Dumont told Sky News that he believes 29 bodies have been found.
British Red Cross chief executive Mike Adamson said: “Reports of more lives lost today in theChannel are truly heartbreaking and come far too soon after other recent deaths on this route.
Continue reading...Downing Street declines to praise home secretary over attempts to stop crossings in small boats
Priti Patel is being put under “immense pressure” from Downing Street and Conservative MPs over government efforts to halt Channel crossings in small boats, with No 10 refusing to say the home secretary had done a good job.
As figures revealed, the number of people making perilous crossings has tripled since 2020, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson twice declined to praise Patel’s strategy on Monday. He said the prime minister had “confidence in the home secretary” but would only say she has “worked extremely hard and no one can doubt this is a priority for her”.
Continue reading...People smugglers are putting hundreds to sea this autumn despite stormy weather
More than 75 people are feared dead after their boat capsized in stormy seas off the coast of Libya while attempting to reach Europe in one of the deadliest shipwrecks this year, according to the UN.
Fifteen survivors were rescued by local fishers and brought to the port of Zuwara in north-western Libya. They said there were about 92 people onboard the vessel when the incident took place on 17 November. Most of those who died came from sub-Saharan Africa.
Continue reading...PM Edi Rama says he will ‘never receive refugees for richer countries’ after Raab said UK was exploring plans
Albania has strenuously denied it is willing to process people crossing the Channel to Britain, after the UK deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, confirmed that the government is exploring ways of processing asylum seekers abroad.
Edi Rama, the prime minister, said he would “never receive refugees for richer countries”, after a report in the Times suggested Albania would be willing to host an offshore processing centre for people arriving in the UK from France in small boats.
Continue reading...Senior judges said deporting Polly Gordon, 75, would disproportionately interfere with her human rights
A 75-year-old American woman who uses a Zimmer frame and is unable to digest solid food, has won her appeal to remain in the UK after living here for 53 years.
The Home Office attempted to deport Polly Gordon after she served a 12-month sentence for supply of a controlled drug. She was convicted of the offence in July 2019 at Edinburgh sheriff’s court. According to a judgment in the immigration tribunal she has a past history of substance abuse and addiction to alcohol.
Continue reading...Analysis contradicts Priti Patel’s claim that 70% are single men who are economic migrants to UK
Nearly two-thirds of people who migrate to the UK in small boats are deemed to be genuine refugees and allowed to remain, a report says, in an apparent contradiction of past statements by the home secretary, Priti Patel.
Analysis using Home Office data and requests under freedom of information laws has concluded that 61% of migrants who travel by boat are likely to be allowed to stay after claiming asylum.
Continue reading...Arthur Jones’s film seeks the stories of six Chinese men who survived the 1912 tragedy and finds undisguised western racism
What’s in a name? That evergreen question is complicated even further in Arthur Jones’s fascinating documentary, executive produced by James Cameron and informed by the research of marine historian Steven Schwankert. Following the Titanic sinking in 1912, the identities of the 700-odd survivors have been mostly claimed, except for those of six Chinese men – out of eight who boarded – who remained bizarrely neglected. This film chronicles Schwankert’s quest to unravel the mystery, as his arduous journey across the US, the UK, Canada, and China takes the shape of a detective story, where each revelation exposes the blatant racism of early 20th-century western politics.
Armed with a dock slip listing the names of the Titanic’s eight Chinese passengers, Schwankert and peers’ attempt to trace their origins runs into immediate difficulties, as most of their subjects changed their identities in order to sidestep cruel and discriminatory immigration regulations. These Titanic survivors arrived in the US looking to work as labourers, and under the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act they were shipped to other countries immediately after the sinking. Some disappeared without a trace. The only survivor whom the researchers were able to build a coherent narrative around was Fang Lang, who founded a business in the US by changing his name and working as a merchant, shielding himself from the Exclusion Act, which targeted manual labourers.
Continue reading...Border Force staff express concern at Priti Patel’s proposed tactic of forcing boats back to France
Border Force guards, who the government says will be asked to turn refugee boats in the Channel around, are considering applying for a judicial review to stop the tactic from being used.
Officers from the PCS union have said they are prepared to launch a high court challenge to the lawfulness of Priti Patel’s plans. The home secretary has maintained that the tactic of intercepting and sending back boats to France would be within the law.
Continue reading...Outside EU, people can no longer be returned to other European countries under legislation known as Dublin regulation
Refugees living in northern France say Brexit has made it easier for them to reach the UK in small boats, as it emerged that record numbers of people crossed the Channel in one day.
Despite the worsening weather conditions and the UK government’s attempts to deter them, 1,185 people made the crossing on Thursday, according to the Home Office.
Continue reading...The refugee camp became notorious in 2015, as 1 million people fled war and danger to come to Europe. Years after it was demolished, 2,000 migrants are still waiting there, at the centre of a political storm
A small group of Ethiopian and Eritrean men stand shoeless and shivering in Calais. A few hours earlier, they almost drowned in the Channel, trying to cross to the UK. They got into difficulty when the motor on their boat failed. Their jeans are stiff and sodden with sand and seawater.
“We called the French coastguard to rescue us but they told us to call the English coastguard,” says one man. “Eventually, the French rescued us and brought us back to Calais.
Migrants and police at the ‘Old Lidl’ site in Calais. The police clear the site regularly, evicting anyone living there and seizing remaining belongings.
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