‘They don’t see us as humans’: Family’s anger at people smugglers after daughter dies in boat tragedy
Mohammed looks at me, his eyes wet from tears, and shakes his head gently. Grief is like a weight around him, which he meets with forced smiles and choked-back tears.
“Every day, I think of dying a hundred times,” he says.
Next to him is his wife, Nour, heavily pregnant and sobbing into her hands. She is due to give birth in just a couple of weeks, but now mourns her daughter just as she awaits the arrival of a son.
It is less than a week since Rula drowned in a French canal, and the devastation is still desperately etched on their faces.
Nour unlocks her phone and calls up a photo of Rula. She is smiling out from the screen.
“She was beautiful and I lost her. My little princess. She was seven years old, she had seen nothing in this world. We just wanted to make their lives better,” she says.
Rula died because of the family’s dream of reaching Britain. They had spent years travelling from Iraq, where their lives were threatened, across Europe, to Germany and then on to France.
Nour and her family had spent years travelling from Iraq, where their lives were threatened
A few days ago, the family boarded a boat in France, intent on reaching Britain. They had paid a people smuggler €6,000, and been promised seats aboard the sort of vessel used for tourist trips – safe and reliable.
Instead, they were placed on a death-trap – an overloaded stolen pleasure-boat with no life jackets that capsized on a canal. Rula, who had sought refuge from the noise in a small cabin at the front of the boat, was trapped inside.
“The water came into the cabin and she was stuck,” says Mohammed.
“The smugglers had left us. I had to rescue my wife, my son and another person. But I couldn’t rescue her.”
They are too tired to shout or become furious. But if you ask them about blame, then the answer comes back.
“My daughter died and the reason why is because of the people smugglers who have no morals,” he says.
“They fooled us, took money from us and threw us in the water without any mercy. They do not see humans as humans – they only see materials and money.”
Muhaimen pays his respects at his sister’s funeral
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Rula’s death poses tough question for politicians
Besides them are their three sons – Muhaimen, 14, Hassan, 10, and Moamel, eight. They listen and nod along quietly.
“She was very dear to us, but what do we do?” says Hassan, when I ask him about his sister.
“I want her to come back but she won’t.” His grief is so thick it bewilders him.
The family invited us to talk to them. They wanted the world to know about their daughter, but they also wanted to talk about their exasperation with the life they’ve ended up living – fleeing a home where they cannot stay, but struggling to find a place where they can actually settle.
“I do not know what to do or where to go,” Nour says. “What crime have these children committed? What is their future? I need a country to listen to me, just take their papers.”
Mohammed nods and holds his wife. “When you reach a point when your life is not secure, when your children could get killed, you have no choice but to migrate and go to countries that preach humanity.
Rula’s father Mohammed speaks to Sky News
“But when you talk to them, tell them your story, they threaten you with deportation. Our children are smart but honestly, sometimes we wonder – why did we bring them into this world?”
I ask if they would still like to go to Britain, despite all the trauma they have experienced. The answer is yes. Remarkably, they plan on trying again.
A message comes through. The family has been asked to go to the morgue in Lille.
Mohammed comes in and out, a ball of nervous tension. Hassan and Moamel play with a paper aeroplane on a patch of lawn over the road from the morgue. They find a ladybird and agree that Rula would have loved it.
But then they are called back in, and they see her body, and when we see the boys next they are silent but for their weeping.
A short while later, Rula’s body is released to the family but there is little time to waste. Muslim tradition dictates that the burial must take place before sunrise.
When we get to the graveyard, there are dozens of people waiting – sympathetic strangers who’ve come to offer solace. You can see the family are touched.
At the far end, under the shadow of a tall electricity pylon but shaded from the traffic noise, Rula’s coffin is lowered into a grave.
Rula was buried during a small ceremony
There is a prayer, a moment of reflection, and then the grave is filled in. Her father and brothers all rub their hands in the soil. A bag is filled with the dirt and given to Nour. Flowers are placed over the grave, as well as photos of Rula. A marker is put in place, remembering her name. Hassan kisses it.
We say goodbye to the family, and one thing strikes me. If Mohammed, Nour and their children do eventually get to the UK, they will not be allowed to travel abroad again for a long time.
Reaching Britain will mean being cut off from their daughter’s final resting place, unable to lay flowers on Rula’s grave. Like so much in the story of migration, it is also a tale of making terrible choices.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
British surgeons on life in Gaza
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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