“You can’t do this job without a gun. You have to carry a gun,” the man opposite me calmly explains.
“When there is disagreement, they come to you at night and empty two bullets in you and then disappear.”
The high-risk job he’s describing isn’t in the military or the police – he is a people smuggler.
Last year, he made more than £800,000 selling migrants spots in dinghies taking them from France to the UK.
He’s agreed to tell me more about the shadowy industry on the condition that we disguise his identity.
“My job is to send people from Dunkirk to Britain. From April till November, the workload is very good and the demand for Britain is high,” Taha says.
“I launched 12 dinghies last year and each dinghy had 50 or 45 migrants in them. Each person £1,500 so, thank God, I earned good money.”
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A huge map of Europe is rolled out on the table in front of us.
This is his marketplace, the area where he drums up trade.
Business is booming, more than 11,000 people have paid smugglers like Taha to cross the Channel to the UK so far this year, often packing into rickety dinghies with too few life jackets.
“How do you get your boats to France?” I ask.
“Turkey to Austria and to Germany and then from Germany to France,” he says, pointing at the route on the map.
Taha is a cog in a much larger smuggling network.
He says other people oversee logistics, sending dinghies from Turkey to Germany and storing them in warehouses to be distributed to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
Taha’s business is focused on the crossing itself and begins when the migrants get to France.
He says they usually arrive in Dunkirk with the help of friends or relatives.
Their crossing fee is deposited with a kind of smugglers’ travel agent.
Once they arrive safely in Britain, the money is released to agents like Taha.
But the cash isn’t guaranteed.
The boats cost 13,000 to 14,000 euros, so if one sinks or is slashed by French police then he takes the financial hit.
He’s also responsible for the people on board.
More than 250 have disappeared crossing the Channel since 2014, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.
A seven-year-old girl is among those who have drowned this year.
Image: Taha tells Siobhan Robbins ‘we can’t pressure people’
‘If we pressure people, we are killers’
Taha doesn’t pretend the route is safe.
“I have not had anyone dying on my watch but there were a few dinghies that capsized, and some migrants drowned. This passage is a dangerous journey,” he says.
Numerous governments, including the UK, have blamed smugglers for the deaths.
“The British government says that the smugglers are killing people… [but] we see ourselves as rescuers and not killers because the people go of their own volition, and we can’t pressure people.
“If we pressure people to go, then we are killers,” he says.
“I can’t give up on this job because that is what I know. I want to give up but can’t stay away from this work,” he says.
So, while the police and politicians try to stop people boarding the boats, smugglers like Taha work on staying one step ahead – promising to find new routes if old ones are closed, willing to risk their lives for a stake in this multi-billion-pound trade.
Iran’s response to Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities is “self-defence” and a “matter of principle”, the Iranian ambassador to the UK has told Sky News.
Speaking exclusively to The World With Yalda Hakim, Seyed Ali Mousavi said the “barbaric Israeli regime” is “violating international law” – describing Israel’s actions in recent days as “an act of aggression against the Iranian people”.
The conflict between Israel and Iran – once played out in a series of proxy wars – has escalated in the past three days.
Image: Sky’s Yalda Hakim spoke to Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Seyed Ali Mousavi
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1:42
Israel-Iran: How the conflict escalated
On Friday morning, explosions hit Tehran as Israel carried out a major attack on its top army leaders, nuclear sites, and nuclear scientists.
Iran threatened “severe punishment” and quickly retaliated with a wave of missiles.
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0:18
Missile aftermath in Israel
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0:31
Israeli missile hits warehouse in Iranian city
When questioned about whether Iran could continue fighting Israel, the Iranian ambassador told Yalda Hakim that “it is a matter of principle”.
He said: “This is about self-defence, there is no doubt about it.
“We are a responsible member state of the UN and we do all activities according to our international obligations.
“Any activities are only in the framework of self-defence.”
Image: Damage from an Iranian missile attack to a building in Bat Yam, Israel. Pic: Reuters
Image: Explosions over Jerusalem on Sunday
He added that his country would “do our best to preserve our territorial integrity”, and that “with the help of God”, Iran will “materialise endeavours concretely against our enemy – the Israeli regime”.
Mr Mousavi also told Hakim that Iran’s nuclear activities are “monitored”, and that recent comments by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were “politically motivated”.
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0:58
Missiles have also been seen over Tel Aviv
The UN nuclear watchdog’s board of governors found Iran was not complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years.
Iran said it has “always adhered” to the safeguarding obligations laid down by the watchdog.
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15:10
Iranian ambassador reacts to strikes – full interview
Announcing Operation Rising Lion on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Iran had recently taken steps to weaponise enriched uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons.
But Mr Mousavi stressed that Iran’s “peaceful activities” at its “nuclear fields” were only for the “generation of electricity, and other peaceful” things.
Iran was due to continue its round of negotiations with the US in Muscat – however, this was cancelled, given recent tensions.
The government is warning people not to travel to Israel under any circumstances, as the country’s missile exchange with Iran shows no sign of abating.
On Friday, the Foreign Office warned against “all but essential travel” to most of Israel.
The areas around Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights were already classed as red zones, with warnings to avoid travel to these areas.
But the government has now updated the warning for the remainder of the country to red.
This puts Israel on the same level as Iran, and the change of advice is also likely to impact travel insurance.
However, with Israel’s airspace closed, it is unlikely many people will be attempting the journey, and Israel’s national airline El Al has announced it is cancelling flights to and from many European cities, as well as Tokyo and Moscow, until 23 June.
The change in travel advice comes after a second night of ballistic missile barrages from Iran following Israel’s attack in the early hours of Friday morning.
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1:43
An eight-storey residential building in Tel Aviv was hit by a missile last night.
On Sunday morning, Israel’s health ministry said 12 people had been killed over the past day, taking the total since Friday to 15. It also said 385 people had arrived at hospital with injuries overnight.
Iran has not provided a total number of deaths or overall casualties, but has claimed dozens have been killed.
Iran’s health minister has said most of those injured and killed in Israeli strikes were civilians. According to comments carried by news agency IRNA, he said the majority were women and children.
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18:00
The chancellor said UK forces could “potentially” be used to help defend Israel.
The UK government is sending military assets, including fighter jets, to the Middle East.
While the prime minister would not confirm to reporters that UK forces could be used to defend Israel from future Iranian attacks, the chancellor told Sky News earlier that the government is “not ruling anything out”.
Speaking to Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Rachel Reeves said sending military assets to the Middle East “does not mean that we are at war”, and emphasised that “we have not been involved in these strikes or this conflict”.
“But we do have important assets in the region,” she continued. “And it is right that we send jets to protect them. And that’s what we’ve done. It’s a precautionary move, and at the same time, we are urging de-escalation.”
Pushed on the question of what the UK would do if Israel asked for support with its operations, the chancellor replied: “I’m not going to rule anything out at this stage. It’s a fast-moving situation, a very volatile situation. But we don’t want to see escalation.”
A helicopter carrying Hindu pilgrims has crashed in India, killing seven people on board.
The accident happened within minutes of the helicopter taking off, officials said, on what should have been a 10-minute flight.
The helicopter was flying to Guptkashi, a prominent Hindu pilgrimage site in the Himalayas, from Kedarnath temple town in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.
It comes three days after an Air India flight crashed less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in northwestern India, killing at least 270 people.
The helicopter, which was operated by private helicopter service Aryan Aviation, went down in a forested area several miles from the Kedarnath pilgrimage route at around 5.30am local time.
Officials said the crash was believed to have been caused by poor weather conditions.
Authorities say they have launched a search and rescue operation and are expected to review operational protocols for flights in the region.
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The dead include the pilot and pilgrims from the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh and western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, according to officials. The bodies were badly burned in a fire that followed the crash, they said.
Image: Smoke and debris at the site. Pic: Reuters
Tens of thousands of pilgrims visit Kedarnath, which is home to one of the four most sacred Hindu temple shrines, each summer. Many use helicopter services due to the difficult mountainous terrain.
Helicopter mishaps are not uncommon in the region, where sudden weather changes and high-altitude flying conditions can pose risks.
Earlier this month, a helicopter operating in the Kedarnath Valley made an emergency landing shortly after taking off on a highway due to a technical fault. The pilot was injured but all five passengers on board were unharmed.
In May, a helicopter crashed in Uttarkashi district, killing six people, including the pilot. One person survived.