FOr for four days this week, Karwan Tahir shares a tent with a young man named Karim in the woods near Dunkirk. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Karim set off for the United Kingdom-in the dark to a nearby beach, and then took a fragile boat from there into the vast and uncertain strait.
“I don’t know if he succeeded or drowned,” Tahir said on Friday, showing the living space he and Karim briefly shared. “He didn’t come back. I only know he came from [Iraqi] Kurdistan, just like me. We met at the camp. He knows that I speak English, so he invited me to share his tent.
“Now it’s mine,” he added.
The last known location of Karim was a huge shelter camp on the outskirts of Grande-Synthe, next to a bridge and a canal. There are hundreds of people living in the camp, almost all of them Kurds from Iraq.most likely 27 people died in ice water They lived and slept here on Wednesday before their final journey.
However, accurate information is difficult to obtain. In this temporary community, people take care of each other, but apart from family or partner groups, the relationship is temporary and short-lived. Although everyone has a cell phone to keep in touch with family and friends, it is difficult to obtain exact information about the deceased.
Sad relatives may go home.
Asking too many questions is not worth it. The atmosphere changed after dark, when the Kurdish mafia, which was involved in smuggling activities, appeared when the deal was concluded.
According to local rescuers, on Wednesday, a 23-year-old Iraqi Kurd was shot twice in the leg after an argument and was taken to the hospital by an ambulance. A smuggler is said to have opened fire after the man refused to board the ship. A few hours later, news of 29 deaths spread. He has paid 1,500 pounds-half of his expenses-and another 1,500 pounds promised after he arrived in the UK.
It is not clear whether Karim is among the 17 drowning men, 7 women (one of whom is pregnant) and 3 children, or whether he has already arrived in Dover.Tahir showed off the life jacket he bought for his journey-“I spent 35 euros [about £30]”, he said-there is also a lovely tiger left by a family who has just passed away.
Tahir describes the tortuous journey that took him to the north coast FranceHe said he left the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah a month ago and then flew from Dubai to Minsk, the capital of Belarus. He said that with the help of the Belarusian border guards, he reached the EU border, and the border guards showed him where to cross the border. He traveled by car from Poland to northern France. He said that so far, the trip has cost 12,000 pounds, including a prepayment of 3,000 pounds to smugglers for the upcoming boat trip.
Most people camping in the rain and mud are young people who are unaccompanied, but there are also families.
A young boy named Muhammad was playing with a plastic helicopter under the tarpaulin, next to the open-air fireplace built by his father Adil. Adil’s wife Sarah and his youngest son Malik hide in the tent.
The camp is harsh and littered, with no toilets or running water. The charity provided clothes and food.
Despite the tragedy that happened on Wednesday, many people camping here said they are still determined to arrive in the UK.
Sokar Mawlud, 20, from the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, admitted that bad weather made the journey more dangerous and he was “trapped”. He plans to go to London with his 13-year-old brother Sahand and their 42-year-old mother, Xiao Bo.
Mawlud’s long journey. He said that he left Iraq in 2015, spent six years in Nuremberg, Germany, went to school, and was then forced to leave and fly to Turkey. From there he returned to France. Why the UK? “My sister lives there. She is a barber,” he said. He thought he knew one of the drowning people, but he wasn’t sure.
On Thursday, Mawlud and his family went to Loon-Plage, a beach west of Dunkirk, where the 29 victims are believed to have set off. A ship is waiting. Mawlud said they turned around after spotting a French police patrol on the beach. “Actually, it’s very dangerous. The smuggler bought a small boat with a capacity of 20 people, and then filled it with 50 people.”
On Loon-Plage, there are unforgettable signs of immigrants leaving. A collapsed boat lies in the sand dunes; further forward, against the backdrop of Dunkirk’s busy port, cranes and smoke, is another abandoned boat, manufactured by the German company MaRe Boote. Nearby is a red life jacket and a left shoe, half filled with sand. The whereabouts of its owner is unknown.
Most people camping near Calais and Dunkirk have some family connections in the UK-uncles, brothers and sisters, friends. Others said they learned from social media that it is easy to find a job. Tahir said that he lived in Bury St Edmunds for seven years, worked at Pizza Express, and returned to Iraq in 2006, believing that his country is safe. “A mistake,” he said.
People of different nationalities often gather in different camps along the coast of Nord-Pas de Calais. 21-year-old Akhmed Wikky was one of the few Afghans who eventually came to Grand Sint, a suburb of Dunkirk. He said he left Afghanistan on foot from his home in Mazar-i-Sharif five months ago. When he arrived in Turkey in August, the Taliban had already occupied his hometown and capital Kabul.
What will he do now?
“My brother lives in Luton. I will try to go there with him. If I can’t, my plan B is to stay and learn French,” he said.
He said that the greater politics of the immigration crisis has passed. “I am not a drug dealer, nor a terrorist, nor a bad person. I only want my human rights,” he said. “My ideal is to study in the UK. I want to be an urban planner.”
