Unless urgent action is taken to stop “playing politics with people’s lives,” more lives will be lost in the strait. Ministers are warned because desperate refugees vowed to continue trying dangerous journeys.
The grim prediction was made when investigators tried to identify the bodies of at least 27 people, including a pregnant woman and three children, who were believed to be mainly Kurds from Iraq. Who drowned on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the images of their frustrated gray rubber boat floating in the sea made people feel the horror of tragedy, and Chilling call for help There has been a warning made by the French coast guard operator of how many bodies the ship has in the water. But cross-party lawmakers, experts and activists worry that the tragedy may repeat itself.
Residents of temporary camps around Calais and Dunkirk told the Guardian that hundreds of people traveled through Belarus to northern France. crisis On its border with Poland. Many people vowed to continue their plan to go to England in search of a better life—all Thursday, new arrivals continued to land in Dover.
Thursday night Boris Johnson Write a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, listing five steps to avoid the recurrence of the drowning incident. They include joint patrols to prevent ships from leaving French beaches; technologies such as sensors and radars; mutual maritime patrols and aerial surveillance; better sharing of intelligence to arrest and prosecute human smugglers; and bilateral returns agreements with France and the establishment of UK-EU returns Negotiation of agreement.
Folkestone’s Conservative MP Damian Collins told the BBC that if the French do not increase patrols on the northern beaches, more deaths will occur.The Secretary of the Interior Priti Patel stated that it is now Until the french Take action to prevent further tragedies.
Humanitarian groups agree that more people may die, but in Potential solutions, Instead of pushing the British government to introduce new safe and legal channels and supporting existing channels, such as resettlement programs. Beth Gardner-Smith, CEO of Safe Passage International, called on Patel to resign and warned that more tragedies are coming.
She said: “Since the government closed the safe route to the UK last year, more and more people have taken a frozen and terrifying journey across the English Channel in unstable boats.” “The government has chosen to use human lives to play politics.” , But failed to prevent people from risking crossing the border. This is the result.”
In the shadow of an abandoned warehouse in Grande-Synthe in eastern Calais, Shivan told reporters that he had traveled from Iraq to France And will continue his plan of crossing. “We just want to live. We are not afraid of crossing. It is better to crossing.”
The victims who drowned on Wednesday appeared to be mainly Kurds from Iraq, including 17 men, 7 women (one of whom was pregnant) and 3 children. Two male survivors, an Iraqi and a Somali, are receiving treatment for exhaustion and hypothermia at a hospital in Calais.
The Lille prosecutor has launched a criminal investigation and five men have been arrested in connection with the incident. The fifth suspect detained on Thursday morning has been driving a car with a German license plate and “purchased an inflatable boat in Germany.”
It is believed that the inflatable boat carrying at least 29 people departed from Loon-Plage near Dunkirk, and they were likely to camp on the sand dunes near Grande-Synthe.
People waiting to cross the border at Grande-Synthe told the Guardian that many of them had arrived from Belarus, and Belarus was accused of creating a border crisis with neighboring Poland in retaliation for EU sanctions.
The increase in the number of people arriving in Calais via Belarus highlights the increasingly complex situation faced by European governments in resolving the refugee crisis.
this work from home Refused to comment on the impact of the Belarusian crisis on the flow of migrants, while the British government redoubled its emphasis on its position with France. Boris Johnson held a Cobra meeting on Wednesday to discuss the incident. He said that the French government does not always deal with border crossings “in a way that we think the situation deserves.”
