Migrants fill up squalid camp and wait for boats to cross the Channel – in wake of tragic deaths

Published

1 year ago

November 25, 2022

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There is never a good time to visit the migrant camp in Grande-Synthe, but now it looks particularly grim.

The mud is so deep that I see a man’s foot disappear up to his ankle as he comes to charge his mobile phone. A puddle has turned into a lake, straddling the width of the road that runs through the camp.

And as I chat to some of the people living here, they feed a brazier with both wood and hand gel to keep it burning.

It is a sorry, squalid and dangerous place, but it has a purpose. This is the staging post for people preparing to get to Britain.

Come to this camp and you can find a smuggler prepared to sell you passage across the Channel; someone who will tell you that, for a price, they can fulfil your dream of getting to the English shore.

A year on from the deaths of 31 people on a lightweight dinghy in the middle of the Channel, the appetite to make this crossing seems undiminished.

We meet Ahmed, who has already tried to get across the Channel and is determined to have another go soon. On his phone is the evidence – a map showing that he was nearly in English territorial waters when the engine on his boat had failed.

If he had just kept going a little further, then his rescuers would have taken him to Kent, rather than back to Northern France.

Then there’s Rebaz, who has spent months trekking here from Kurdistan. He has made the long, arduous journey despite the fact that the bottom half of his left leg has been amputated. He says it was ripped away when he was near an airstrike in Iraq.

Rebaz blames NATO for the injury, but is still determined to get to Britain because “life is better there – and I am going for the sake of the future of my children.”

When I ask him if he worries about the danger, or the spectre of people dying in the Channel, he shrugs and looks genuinely indifferent. “I am not scared,” he tells me. “Nobody here is scared. I have to go – I have no other option.”

It was that drive that propelled 33 people to get on that ill-fated boat a year ago, when so many perished and only two survived. Four bodies have never been recovered, including that of Twana Mamand Mohammad, who was 18.

A keen athlete, who enjoyed Taekwondo and football, he had always wanted to leave Iraq, see Europe and hopefully become a footballer in the Premier League.

His brother, Zana, described him as “no trouble – at home, in the street, at school, in his school teams and among his friends”. He was, he said, “the go-to person in the family”.

On the night he died, Twana had previously messaged his anxious brother to reassure him that all was okay, saying the boat was working fine and that they were on their way to Britain.

Instead, a little later the engine failed. Sky News has seen transcripts of phone and text conversations between people on the boat and French emergency services, and they paint a picture of chaos at sea, allied to hesitation and indifference on the land.

Those on the boat called the French emergency service line, but help was not sent.

Then they were told that they were, in fact, in British coastal waters, so should phone the UK authorities. They, in turn, said the boat was in French waters.

And so it went on until, hours later, with the buck being passed and information not being passed between the two authorities. The boat took on water but when the French were told this, the reply was that it was “English water”.

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Eventually, awfully, the passengers went into the sea, hours after phoning to ask for assistance that never came.

Instead, it fell to a fishing boat to raise the alarm after spotting bodies in the water.

Zana is now in France, trying to find out more about the circumstances surrounding his brother’s death. He remains shattered by the tragedy and bewildered that desperate people could have been left without help.

“Because this incident happened in the waters between both countries our loved ones contacted both countries and requested assistance,” he says. “But none of them offered assistance.”

He says that he now tells people not to follow in his brother’s footsteps; to avoid this perilous crossing and think about their safety. And his advice, he says, is ignored.

“Whoever you tell not to embark on this boat journey, they say ‘Whatever God has in store for us – that will happen’.

“So I tell them the tragic journey of Twana but this migration continues. And it will continue.”

And he’s right. The number of people crossing the Channel has increased over the past year. Since the disaster in November 2021, around 44,000 people have arrived in Britain using a small boat.

It is evening in Dunkirk and a procession winds its way through the town – a memorial march to remember the 31 people who died.

It ends on the beach, where the names of the victims are read out and hand-painted signs, embossed with their names, are held up. Twana’s name is there, along with everyone else – a catalogue of mainly young lives cut short in the most harrowing of circumstances.

At the time, it seemed like the sort of tragedy that would demand change. But in reality, the boats are still leaving, the smugglers are still cashing in, and the camps are still buzzing with people.

And as long as desperate people continue to cross the world’s busiest shipping lane in feeble, flimsy craft, the prospect of another disaster seems, grimly, inevitable.

World

Health warning issued as heatwave grips South and Southeast Asia

Published

19 hours ago

May 4, 2024

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Health warning issued as heatwave grips South and Southeast Asia

Countries in South and Southeast Asia have been coping with a weeks-long heatwave which has seen record temperatures sweep parts of the region.

Pupils in the Philippines, India and Bangladesh have been told to stay at home and learn remotely due to a severe health risk.

Schools in Cambodia have also cut back on their hours.

Cambodia faces its hottest temperature in 170 years, according to meteorologists – as high as 43C (109F).

Bangkok in Thailand has reached 40C (104 F), but the heat index is said to have topped 50 C (122 F) due to the heat being trapped among the mass of buildings.

The United Nations Children’s Fund warned in April that the heat could put the lives of millions of children at risk and asked people who care for them to take extra precautions.

A spokesperson for UNICEF said around 243 million children were exposed to hotter and longer heatwaves.

They said the increased heat was “putting them at risk of a multitude of heat-related illnesses, and even death”.

Thirty people in Thailand have died from heatstroke in the past month, according to data from the country’s health ministry.

People are being advised to avoid outdoor activities and to stay hydrated.

Several towns in Myanmar were included on lists of the hottest spots globally last month, with temperatures reaching 48.2C (118F) in at least one case.

Parts of eastern India also experienced their hottest April on record.

Kerala, on India’s west coast, this week instructed all schools and colleges to close until Monday, while influencers in Bangladesh have encouraging people to plant trees in response to the record heat.

Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, said there were three factors for heatwaves: a naturally-occurring climate phenomenon known as El Nino, an increase in global temperatures, and human-induced climate change.

Brazil is currently experiencing another climate phenomenon – La Nina – with 39 dead and 68 missing in floods across the country.

More than 24,000 people have been forced to leave their homes due to the flooding.

Scientists believe the naturally-occurring phenomenon has intensified due to the impact of climate change.

World

Philippine coastguard hits out at China’s ‘brute force’ after water cannon attack

Published

1 day ago

May 4, 2024

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Philippine coastguard hits out at China's 'brute force' after water cannon attack

China has been branded “a bully” and an international lawbreaker after its ships blasted Philippine vessels with water cannon in the South China Sea.

Sky News was on board the BRP Bagacay when a Chinese vessel fired water at it, causing significant damage.

Philippine coastguard spokesman Jay Tarriela told Sky News that this week’s confrontation was the first time China had used “such aggression” against their ships.

“The metal parts and the railing were bent. The canopy was also destroyed. So this came as a surprise for us that China never hesitated to use brute force,” he said.

“It completely justifies us calling The People’s Republic of China a bully country.”

The Philippine coastguard was on a resupply mission to the Scarborough Shoal to deliver food and fuel to Philippine fishermen when they were struck.

The submerged reef lies in disputed waters. China claims sovereignty over the reef but it is much closer to the Philippines and lies within its legally recognised exclusive economic zone.

The vessel Sky News was on board was the closest the coastguard had ever been to the shoal – just 600 metres away from it.

Asked if the mission to the shoal was a provocative move by the Philippine coastguard, Commodore Tarriela denied they were “poking the bear” but rather “driving the bear out of our own territory”.

The Philippines has been stepping up its patrols in the area under the instruction of President Bongbong Marcos, and reasserting its claim to the shoal in recent months.

It has raised the spectre of open conflict. While neither side currently wants that, there is now a greater threat of open conflict.

Asked what the end game was for the Philippines, Commodore Tarriela said their priority was to “tell the world” about China’s aggression.

He said their secondary goal was to ensure “like-minded states” also made China “fall in line and respect international law”.

“Otherwise, it’s everybody’s loss,” he added.

Philippine government policy is not to resist using water cannon against Chinese vessels – and Commodore Tarriela insisted that policy remains in place after the confrontation.

The government also remains intensely determined to protect the waters it believes it has every right to operate in.

“We’re not going to yield and we’re not going to surrender a square inch of our territory,” Commodore Tarriela insisted.

Beijing has called the action its own coastguard took as “necessary”.

Speaking at the Chinese foreign ministry’s daily news conference, spokesperson Lin Jian described the coastguard’s conduct as “professional, proper, and lawful”.

World

Three charged over killing of Sikh separatist leader in Canada – in incident which sparked diplomatic spat with India

Published

1 day ago

May 4, 2024

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Three charged over killing of Sikh separatist leader in Canada - in incident which sparked diplomatic spat with India

Three suspects have been charged by Canadian police over the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in Vancouver last June, in an incident that sparked a diplomatic spat between Ottawa and New Delhi.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, was shot dead outside a temple by masked gunmen in Surrey, outside Vancouver, on 18 June 2023.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police assistant commissioner David Teboul said police could not comment on the nature of the evidence or the motive.

“This matter is very much under active investigation,” Teboul said.

The three suspects – Indian nationals Kamalpreet Singh, Karan Brar and Karampreet Singh – were arrested in Edmonton, Alberta, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

Superintendent Mandeep Mooker said: “This investigation does not end here. We are aware that others may have played a role in this homicide and we remain dedicated to finding and arresting each one of these individuals.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked a diplomatic feud with India when he said in September that there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the killing. India angrily denied involvement.

Mr Nijjar, an Indian-born citizen of Canada, was a leader in what remains of the Khalistan movement – a once-strong group calling for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland.

He was organising an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of this death and had denied allegations of ties to terrorism.

The Khalistan movement has lost much of its power but is still supported by some in the Punjab state in northwestern India and in the Sikh diaspora overseas.

A violent, decade-long Sikh insurgency shook north India in the 1970s and 1980s, and was ultimately crushed in a government crackdown which saw thousands of people killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.

In June 1984, Indian forces stormed the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine in Amritsar, where separatists had taken refuge.

In more recent years, the Indian government has repeatedly warned that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback.

Read more: What is the Khalistan movement?

The diplomatic row saw diplomats expelled by both India and Canada.

The Indian government said it “completely rejected” Mr Trudeau’s allegations and added: “We are a democratic polity with a strong commitment to rule of law.”

The dispute derailed trade talks between the two countries and ultimately saw Canada withdraw 41 of its 62 diplomats in India.

At the time, Canada did not provide public evidence to back up Mr Trudeau’s allegations. However, it did reveal the claims were based on intelligence provided by a major ally and surveillance of Indian diplomats in the country.