‘I couldn’t cope with Britain anymore’: Kurdish man pays smuggler to return him to France after failed asylum claim
We are rushing down the beach. In the gloom just before dawn, people are waiting by the seashore, a few hundred metres away.
We can see a dinghy out at sea. And then a voice rings out, in Kurdish.
“Whose passengers are you?”
In the half-light, the people smuggler thinks we are customers here to clamber on to the boat, and wants to know who we had paid.
We tell him we’re journalists.
“Keep out of the way,” he warns.
There are several dozen people gathered together, standing on the shoreline, moving anxiously from side to side.
Migrants wait for a dinghy as they prepare to cross the Channel to reach the UK
I can see some women and children, but most of the passengers are men.
Some are clinging to a bag of possessions; others have nothing but the clothes they stand in. A man has his child held up on his shoulders.
Just about everyone is wearing a life jacket.
Just beyond, the boat is coming near the shore, already half full of people.
It seems impossible that all the people on the land can really fit into the space left in the boat, but that’s what happens.
On a signal, the movement starts – the younger men clamber in first, and then help the women, children and older people to get into the boat.
It all happens remarkably quickly. From a distance, migrant boats may look ramshackle and chaotic, but when you get up close, there is method and practice.
Some people jump off; the men who didn’t have life jackets on.
It becomes clear that these are the smugglers – or, more accurately, the smugglers’ assistants who have been sent to sort things out.
On one side, we see a moment of tension as two passengers square up – one accuses the other of not leaving a space for him to get aboard.
A shoe left in the sand following the attempted crossing
It is a faintly ridiculous squabble, like something between two drunk men in a pub, and it blows over. They end up sitting next to each other, brooding.
And then the engine is started and the boat sets off. At first, it’s a failure – the boat, low in the water with around 70 people on board, gets stuck on a small bar of sand and spins around.
But, with a push here and there, it gets going and slowly chugs away into the mist of the morning.
‘Migrants are desperate’
We turn around. The smugglers are leaving. We shout a question – are all these people Kurds?
“All of them,” he says. “These are the last Kurdish customers I have. There are no more.”
“Why not?”
And his answer is one succinct word: “Rwanda.”
The smugglers, dressed in black, disappear into the gloom.
We can just about see them clambering into the dunes, and then they are gone. It is a good ten minutes before we see the police – four officers marching down the beach.
They ask only two questions – firstly, did we see women and children on the boat (yes) and secondly, had the boat been launched from the beach (no).
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They’d only just started their patrol, one of the officers tells me. He looks at the calm waters and shrugs. It could be busy.
Over the course of that night, we had seen plenty of police officers. We’d been questioned on the beach, checked as we walked near the beach and then pulled over at a road block.
We’d chatted with a team of CRS riot officers on the beach, one of whom bemoaned the fact that so few people grasped the sheer complexity of what they took on.
“It is so, so complicated – the migrants are desperate, and they can get everywhere. We cannot have a team in every place, at every time.”
It turned out that the road block officers were exactly the same team who we’d met on a different beach the previous evening.
“Ah, Sky News you are back,” he said, with a smile and a handshake.
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‘I cannot go to Rwanda’
We meet two young Sudanese men who tell us they are determined to get to Britain. When I ask if they’re worried about the Rwanda plan, they look blank. They’ve never heard of it.
And then we drop into a migrant camp that is growing in size and bump into another group of Kurds.
They are cooking food – this is the cafe for the migrants – and brewing tea that is strong, and scented with cinnamon.
They give me a cup. It’s delicious.
Omar is kneading dough, making crispy flatbread, and serving it with yoghurt. And he talks as he cooks, serving a remarkable story.
At a migrant camp in France that is growing in size, people kneed bread
Two years ago, Omar left Kurdistan and paid a smuggler $15,000 (£12,000) to get him to Britain. He was there for 20 months, suffered a stroke, failed to gain asylum and ended up paying a smuggler £500 to get him out of Britain and back to this squalid camp in France.
Yes, you read that correctly. He paid to be smuggled out of Britain, and back to France.
“Here there is no washing or bath,” he says.
“You can’t clean yourself. Life is hard. But in Britain I had to give my fingerprints and signature regularly. Once every two weeks.
Omar, who paid to be smuggled out of the UK after a failed asylum claim, speaks to Adam Parsons
“Then I was told they had turned me down for asylum. I couldn’t cope with Britain anymore.
“They could arrest me and send me to Rwanda or Iraq. Rwanda – I cannot go there.
“So that’s why I came back here, to this place. But I have no money. I am 52 years old. It’s a terrible feeling to be back here, but what can I do?”
Listening to him is Barzan, who arrived in the camp five days ago after eight months on the road since leaving Kurdistan.
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By striking contrast, he is not remotely bothered by the Rwanda plan.
“People won’t stop, whatever you tell them.
“Even if you tell them they will be taken to Africa, they would still go without hesitation. Rwanda is better than Kurdistan.
“But in Britain there is work. The currency is strong. I’m young and I want to make a life for myself.”
Another voice is raised – a man named Karwan.
A man named Karwan, who wants to cross the Channel from France to the UK
He hears the word Rwanda, shrugs, smiles and shakes his head: “I think it’s a joke. Two years ago they started going on about Rwanda and nothing came of it.
“Now, it’s just for the sake of the election. Nothing else.”
It’s like The Godfather, one reformed drug trafficker tells me.
The mythical gangster film centred on an organised crime dynasty locked in a transfer of power.
Communities in Scotland currently have a front row seat to a new war of violence, torture, and taunts as feuding drug lords and notorious families grapple for control of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There have been more than a dozen brutal attacks over the past six weeks – ranging from fire bombings to attacks on children and gun violence.
A firebomb attack in Scotland
Victims left for dead, businesses up in flames
Gangsters have filmed themselves setting fire to buildings and homes connected to the associates and relatives of their bitter rivals.
The main aim, they boast, is to “exterminate” the opposition.
The taunting footage, accompanied by the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group, has been plastered over social media as part of a deliberate game of goading.
A 12-year-old boy and 72-year-old woman were left for dead when teenagers wearing balaclavas burst into a home in north Glasgow.
Garages and businesses have gone up in flames. Shots were fired at an Edinburgh house.
Signals are being sent of who wants control of Scotland’s dark criminal underworld.
A firebomb attack that saw a man throw an incendiary device through a building window
The fire attack set to the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group
What’s caused the gang war?
The former director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, Graeme Pearson, explains how a “vacuum of leadership” is playing a part.
Last October, Glasgow-based cocaine kingpin Jamie Stevenson, known as The Iceman, was jailed after orchestrating a £100m cocaine shipment stashed in banana boxes from South America.
The mob leader was one of Britain’s most wanted, running his business like another on-screen criminal enterprise: The Sopranos.
The 59-year-old fugitive went on the run before eventually being hunted and apprehended by police while out jogging in the Netherlands.
Jamie Stevenson. Pic: Police Scotland
Pic: Crown Office
‘Old scores to settle’
But paranoia was running rife about how this notorious gangster could be brought down. Was there a grass? Was it one of their own?
It further fuelled divisions and forced new alliances to be forged across Scotland’s organised criminal networks.
It wasn’t until The Iceman case came to court that it was revealed an encrypted messaging platform, known as EncroChat, had been infiltrated by law enforcement.
It ultimately led to Stevenson pleading guilty.
Ex-senior drug enforcement officer Mr Pearson told Sky News: “It is a complex picture because you have got people who are in prison who still want to have influence outside and look after what was their business.
“On the outside you’ve got wannabes who are coming forward, and they think this is an opportunity for them, and you have got others have old scores to settle that they could not settle when crime bosses were around.”
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Graeme Pearson
Mr Pearson describes a toxic mix swirling to create outbursts of violence unfolding in Scotland.
He concluded: “All that mixes together – and the greed for the money that comes from drugs, and from the kudos that comes from being a ‘main man’, and you end up with competition, violence, and the kind of incidents we have seen over the past four to six weeks.”
New wave of violence ‘barbaric’
Glasgow man Mark Dempster is a former addict, dealer, and drug smuggler who is now an author and respected counsellor helping people quit drinking and drugs.
He describes the “jostle for power” as not a new concept among Glasgow’s high profile gangland families.
Mark Dempster
“There is always going to be someone new who wants to control the markets. It is like The Godfather. There is no difference between Scotland, Albania, or India,” he said.
Mr Dempster suggests a shift in tactics in Glasgow and Edinburgh in recent weeks, with 12-year-olds being viciously attacked in the middle of the night.
“It is barbaric. When young people, children, get pulled into the cross fire. It takes it to a different level.
“At least with the old mafiosa they had an unwritten rule that no children, no other family members. You would deal directly with the main people that were your opposition.”
Police Scotland is racing to get control of the situation, but declined to speak to Sky News about its ongoing operation.
It has been suggested 100 officers are working on this case, with “arrests imminent”.
But this is at the very sharp end of sophisticated criminal empires where the police are not feared, there are fierce vendettas and, clearly, power is up for grabs.
UK
Laws may need to be bolstered to crack down on exploitation of child ‘influencers’, senior MP suggests
Laws may need to be strengthened to crack down on the exploitation of child “influencers”, a senior Labour MP has warned.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the science, technology and innovation committee, said parts of the Online Safety Act – passed in October 2023 – may already be “obsolete or inadequate”.
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Experts have raised concerns that there is a lack of provision in industry laws for children who earn money through brand collaborations on social media when compared to child actors and models.
This has led to some children advertising in their underwear on social media, one expert has claimed.
Those working in more traditional entertainment fields are safeguarded by performance laws, which strictly govern the hours a minor can work, the money they earn and who they are accompanied by.
The Child Influencer Project, which has curated the world’s first industry guidelines for the group, has warned of a “large gap in UK law” which is not sufficiently filled by new online safety legislation.
Official portrait of Chi Onwurah.
Pic: UK Parlimeant
The group’s research found that child influencers could be exposed to as many as 20 different risks of harm, including to dignity, identity, family life, education, and their health and safety.
Ms Onwurah told Sky News there needs to be a “much clearer understanding of the nature of child influencers ‘work’ and the legal and regulatory framework around it”.
She said: “The safety and welfare of children are at the heart of the Online Safety Act and rightly so.
“However, as we know in a number of areas the act may already be obsolete or inadequate due to the lack of foresight and rigour of the last government.”
Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, agreed that regulations “need to keep pace with the times”, with child influencers on social media “protected in the same way” as child actors or models.
“Liberal Democrats would welcome steps to strengthen the Online Safety Act on this front,” she added.
‘Something has to be done’
MPs warned in 2022 that the government should “urgently address the gap in UK child labour and performance regulation that is leaving child influencers without protection”.
They asked for new laws on working hours and conditions, a mandate for the protection of the child’s earnings, a right to erasure and to bring child labour arrangements under the oversight of local authorities.
However, Dr Francis Rees, the principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, told Sky News that even after the implementation of the Online Safety Act, “there’s still a lot wanting”.
“Something has to be done to make brands more aware of their own duty of care towards kids in this arena,” she said.
Dr Rees added that achieving performances from children on social media “can involve extremely coercive and disruptive practices”.
“We simply have to do more to protect these children who have very little say or understanding of what is really happening. Most are left without a voice and without a choice.”
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The researcher pointed to one particular instance, in which children were advertising an underwear brand on social media.
She said: “The kids in the company’s own marketing material or their own media campaigns are either pulling up the band of the underwear underneath their clothing, or they’re holding the underwear up while they’re fully clothed.
“But whenever you look at any of the sponsored content produced by families with children – mum, dad, and child are in their underwear.”
Dr Rees said it is “night and day” in terms of how companies are behaving when they have responsibility for the material, versus “the lack of responsibility once they hand it over to parents with kids”.
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