Against the backdrop of Dunkirk’s busy port, cranes and smoke, a collapsed gray rubber boat lay on the shore, abandoned and washed away by the tide.
This is one of the many haunting signs of thousands of desperate people trying to cross the English Channel from the north. France.
There is a red life jacket and a shoe nearby, half filled with sand. The name of the ship is MaRe Boote, a German company located in Werne, a small town in the western Rhineland, about 400 miles from Calais. According to the German police, immigrants used at least 24 MaRe boats for dangerous journeys.
In a compound in Dover, Ships seized after getting used to Ship from France In storage, there are dozens of small boats of the same or similar model. According to British and French authorities, smugglers buy them in Germany, ship them to France, and then transport them to the beach a few hours before departure.
The Guardian tracks the journeys of many different types of small boats used by human smugglers, most of which are produced thousands of miles away from Dover, China, usually by smugglers ordering local routes for delivery to major immigrants via the Internet. Europe.
“Most small boats are about 11 meters long and are designed to safely transport up to 15 people. Even if there are 50 people on board, smugglers still push them into the vast ocean,” said Salvador Wei, chief prosecutor of Agrigento, Sicily. Salvatore Vella said he led most of the investigations into smugglers operating in Libya.
“The risk to passengers on these rafts is very high,” Vera added. “They are one of the main reasons for the death of asylum seekers at sea, because if they are not rescued, it will be difficult for these ships to reach their destinations. To reduce costs, smugglers buy low-quality inflatable boats at a price of between US$500 [£377] And 2,000 US dollars. “
MaRe Boote boats of the type found in Dunkirk can be purchased for approximately £2,000. There is no indication that Mare Boats did not meet the normal use standards, or that they marketed their boats to human smugglers.
In the past, smugglers bought old fishing boats, barges, wooden and fiberglass boats from Libya, Turkey, Tunisia and Egyptian fishermen in an attempt to cross the border.
However, since the height of the immigration crisis in 2015, European military operations against illegal immigration have begun to destroy these ships to prevent them from being reused for human smuggling.
Therefore, on the main sea routes from the central Mediterranean to Turkey, from the Canary Islands to the coast of Dover, inflatable dinghies have become the most commonly used type of ships to reach Europe.
Some small boats built with inferior materials tend to deflate after a few hours of sailing. Gradually, even if the ship stopped on a calm sea, all of their air cells would collapse. Even the more expensive and better quality models sold in Germany are not suitable for crossing the Strait with dozens of people.
Although the strait route seems easier to reach than the Mediterranean, it is actually one of the deadliest passages. The narrowest part of the strait-about 21 miles-is one of the busiest waterways in the world, with constant traffic of cargo ships and fishing boats, passenger ships, yachts and Coast Guard ships.
Without lights and technology to broadcast their position or monitor the position of other ships, the raft fumbled in the dark, making other ships almost invisible. In an emergency, passengers only have a bicycle pump to prevent deflation, and there are plastic bottles to drain water.
There were 27 people last month, most of them were Iraqi Kurds, When their ship sank in the darkness in the strait, they died. The two survivors said that about three and a half hours after they set off from the beach near Dunkirk, the boat began to deflate.
The survivors said that the people on the boat tried to float the boat, but their pump broke and the boat eventually turned over. The survivors claimed that they had reached British waters at this time and called the UK for help-but they were unsuccessful. Eleven hours later, French fishermen found the body in the water.
“With the use of rubber boats, the cost of traffickers has dropped significantly,” Vera said. “They can also be driven by inexperienced people selected from immigrants. In addition, they are easy to find. They can even be ordered online in the Asian market.”
For many years, Chinese online shopping platform Alibaba has sold inflatable boats under the label of “refugee boat” or “immigrant boat.”
A sales advertisement provides buyers with a “high-quality refugee ship”, priced from US$800 to US$1,100, made of plywood, aluminum and PVC, and can carry up to 30 passengers, with life jackets as “optional equipment.”
“This ship has good sink resistance. When it is fully loaded (even if the ship is full of water), it can still float,” read an ad seen by the Guardian.
After receiving a complaint from the European Union, Alibaba stated that it would no longer “tolerate” sellers using its platform for this purpose. It said that since then, most references to “refugee ships” and “emigrant ships” have been removed from its platform.
But a few weeks ago, the “Guardian” found that although most of the products listed were on the English website of the e-commerce giant, they contained links to “Refugee Ship”, “Quality Refugee Ship” and “Inflatable Immigration Ship”. Still valid. No longer call yourself that under those pages.
At least one advertisement read: “GTS800 15-person inflatable rafting boat, 6.5 meters long and 60 cm diameter”. The supplier is a Qingdao company called Goethe.
A sales representative contacted by the Guardian stated that 70% to 80% of the company’s sales this year came from Europe-mainly Germany and Greece. She said she knew that a Turkish client had bought a ship for refugees a few years ago, but insisted that this situation “no longer happens” due to the Turkish government’s crackdown.
“We produce thousands of ships every year, with about 100 different models,” she said. “In China, [these] The ships are mainly manufactured in Shandong and Guangdong provinces. “
But when asked about the “Immigration Ship” promoted on the Alibaba website, she said: “This is just a gimmick. It doesn’t make much sense.” She declined to disclose any details of Goethe’s customers, citing “company secrets.”
Alibaba has since deleted the page discovered by the Guardian.
The Hangzhou-based company insists that it “will not tolerate those who try to profit from this crisis.” “We have always been committed to ensuring that sellers on our platform list products in an appropriate manner and in compliance with our policies,” it said in a statement to the Guardian.
A leaked EU restriction document, written by officials of Operation Sophia in 2016, the EU’s mission to combat illegal human smuggling routes across the Mediterranean confirms that smugglers in Libya are buying small boats made in China and transporting them to northern Africa via Malta.
The document cited the interception of about 20 packaging rubber boats, which were “imported from China and shipped to Malta and Turkey, packed in a container destined for Misrata, Libya.”
Since there was no legal basis to detain such goods, the ships were released.
Vera said that ships used to carry people to Greece in the past were shipped to Turkey. Those goods that departed from Libya were sent to Malta or Turkish ports, from where they were shipped to Libya as cargo. He said that inflatable toys across the strait were transported to the heart of Europe.
A report by the Pakistan Armed Forces Border Police (Police aux Frontières) last month found that “ships from China that can carry up to 60 migrants are stored abroad, mainly in Germany”.
Marvin Reuter (Marvin Reuter) is the owner of the German company MaRe Boote. The company’s logo has repeatedly appeared on some rubber boats trying to cross the English Channel. He agreed to be interviewed by The Guardian.
The company’s Website says: “We make excellent inflatable products. High-quality, personalized, sporty, fast and uncompromisingly good.”
Reuters said that after the German police notified him that each of his inflatable boats was worth about £2,000, he felt “frustrated” and immigrants used these inflatable boats to try to transit from France to the UK. “I feel terrible about what these bad guys did with my boat,” he said.
Reuters stated that customers who bought these inflatable toys made in China “legally” did so and took them away in cars like everyone else.
Like other small boat companies in Europe, Reuter said he could not be sure whether the customer intends to use these boats to transport people. “The problem is that the customers who bought these ships may have sold them to bad guys.”
Some smuggling groups seem to continue to buy directly from China. According to Olivier Cahn, a criminal law professor at CY Cergy Paris University, it includes a well-organized criminal group composed of Iraqi Kurds, operating in Calais. After 27 people drowned, the gang was partially disbanded in November and several people were arrested.
Kahn said the smugglers used small boats ordered in China and shipped to Turkey. These ships were then transported through the Balkans to Germany, where they were “disassembled” and handed over to smuggling teams operating in the North Calais and Normandy.
Refugees interviewed by The Guardian in a frozen camp on the outskirts of Dunkirk last month said smugglers charge 3,000 euros (£2,500) per person to cross the strait. In 2019, the border crossings intercepted by law enforcement agencies averaged 12 people per ship; by 2021, this number had risen to 27.
Kahn said that small groups of “self-employed” are trying their luck because of the high fees charged by criminal organizations. They exposed themselves to the danger of the sea on temporary boats, which were reinforced with PVC parts with marine tape or plywood secured with screws.
Several large distribution companies in northern France, such as sports equipment retailer Decathlon, no longer sell boats or canoes to prevent immigrants from trying to use them to cross to England.
The rubber dinghy-after a 6,000-mile journey, from the container of the freighter to the hub of the international airport, to the warehouse of the European store, from the hands of smugglers full of people-finally stopped on the northern beach. France and southern England, as well as shoes and clothes.
Shoes and clothing belong to men, women and children, and their fate is still unknown in many cases.
