Migrants fill up squalid camp and wait for boats to cross the Channel – in wake of tragic deaths
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.
Ahmed shows a map of where he was when his boat’s engine 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.
Twana Mamand Mohammad died trying to cross the Channel last year
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.”
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Twana enjoyed Taekwondo and football and always wanted to leave Iraq
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.
Hand-painted signs with victims’ names are held up
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.
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Update given on health condition of Slovakia’s PM – as suspect in court over attempted assassination
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico remains in a stable but serious condition as the man accused of attempting to assassinate him appeared in court for the first time.
Health minister Zuzana Dolinkova said further two-hour surgery on Friday “contributed to a positive prognosis” for the 59-year-old, who was shot five times at point blank range while greeting supporters in the former mining town of Handlova on Wednesday.
Pic: AP
However, although awake at the hospital in Banska Bystrica, where Mr Fico was taken by helicopter after being shot, his condition still made it impossible to transport him to the capital, Bratislava.
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Deputy prime minister Robert Kalinak has said there was no need to formally take over Mr Fico’s official duties.
The suspected gunman was tackled to the ground and arrested at the scene of the attack and the first assassination attempt of a European political leader for more than 20 years.
He has previously been named as 71-year-old Juraj Cintula, a former shopping centre security guard who also writes poetry.
The special criminal court in Pezinok, a small town outside the capital, Bratislava, was guarded by officers wearing balaclavas and carrying automatic weapons for his court appearance.
The media were kept at a distance. Pic: AP
News media were not allowed in for the hearing and reporters were kept behind a gate outside.
Officers had taken the suspect, who has been charged with attempted murder, to his home in the town of Levice on Friday and seized a computer and some documents, according to local media.
The attack sent shockwaves throughout Europe and raised concerns over the already polarised and febrile political situation in Slovakia.
Health minister Zuzana Dolinkova gave the latest update on the PM’s condition. Pic: Reuters
Mr Fico has long been a divisive figure.
His return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American ticket fuelled worries among fellow EU and NATO members over the country’s direction.
Slovakia had previously been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, but on taking office Mr Fico halted arms supplies to the nation battling invading Russian forces.
Thousands of demonstrators have repeatedly rallied in the capital and around the country to protest against his policies.
The bodies of three Israeli hostage taken by Hamas have been recovered in Gaza.
The remains were discovered in an overnight operation carried out by Israel’s military and intelligence agency Shin Bet, said chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, Amit Buskila, 28, and Shani Louk, 22, were killed at the Nova music festival on 7 October, with their bodies then taken into Gaza by Hamas militants.
Ms Louk’s body was seen face-down in a pick-up truck travelling through Gaza in a video that was shared widely on social media after the hostages were taken.
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Shani Louk
Itzhak Gelerenter
Amit Buskila
“They were celebrating life in the Nova music festival and they were murdered by Hamas,” said Mr Hagari.
He said their families have been notified.
“Our hearts go out to them, to the families at this difficult time. We will leave no stone unturned, we will do everything in our power to find our hostages and bring them home.”
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Ms Louk’s father has said the return of his daughter’s body to her family has been a form of closure.
Nissim Louk told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz his daughter “radiated light, to her and those who surrounded her, and in her death she still does”.
He added: “She is a symbol of the people of Israel, between light and darkness. Her inner and outer beauty that shone for all the world to see is a special one.”
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In November, the brother of Ms Louk told Sky News of their last phone call as his sister tried to escape Hamas.
Speaking about the video that was circulated online after she was taken, Amit Louk said: “I never thought I was going to be in contact with this type of video, seeing my sister in that brutal position.
“And just in that moment, the whole family just crashed.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking”, saying: “We will return all of our hostages, both the living and the dead.”
Meanwhile, Professor Hagai Levine, a member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, has said the recovery of the bodies is a “painful reminder” of those who are still in captivity.
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“We do not lose hope. We are preparing for the return of the hostages that are alive,” he added.
Israel has been operating in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, where it says it has intelligence that hostages are being held.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the 7 October attack.
Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
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Gaza situation ‘a complete disaster’
Mr Netanyahu has vowed to both eliminate Hamas and bring all the hostages back.
He faces pressure to resign, and the US has threatened to scale back its support over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and free the hostages, and others who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for eradicating Hamas.
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