I’ve spoken to survivors of deadly Channel crossings – they will try again

Archival photo of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Earlier this week, Keir Starmer spent the day exchanging smiles, pleasantries, and tips on migration from Italy’s far-right leader.

But I think he would have been far better served spending the afternoon with our volunteers in Calais – where I’m based – speaking to the real experts on migration. 

Those who are experiencing it first-hand.

If our Prime Minister had spent the day on the ground here, he would have met survivors of the latest tragedy in the English Channel that happened 24 hours before his visit to Italy, when eight people died trying to cross to England. 

Had he visited refugees in Calais, Starmer would have heard first-hand from those rescued during that disaster. He would have heard from men, women and children who watched their friends and family drown in the Channel. 

Keir Starmer spent the day exchanging smiles, pleasantries, and tips on migration from Italy’s far-right leader (Picture: Phil Noble/PA Wire)

He would have heard from a man, who in the chaos of the rescue, lost the friend with whom he had travelled from Sudan after their homes were destroyed in the civil war.

It was a journey that took them months, and ended in tragedy.

This man was racked with the guilt that he had survived, yet his friend hadn’t. 

The remnants of the boat where eight people died crossing the English Channel (Picture: BERNARD BARRON/AFP via Getty Images)

These are the conversations I have had daily with communities here in my three years delivering humanitarian aid with Care4Calais – a refugee charity working with refugees in the UK and France.

Conversations with a community who are faced with the bleakest choice; to get on a boat to cross the world’s busiest shipping lane in search of safety or face imprisonment, torture, or death back home.

Every person I have met here has told me that if there was any other way, they wouldn’t get into a boat. 

Every person I have met has had no choice but to flee their homes, leaving behind family, friends and belongings.

Every person I have met here is so much more than the journey they are on and their current need for safety. They’re a person, not a statistic. 

Tents in Calais (Picture: Care4Calais)

Speaking to two people who were on the boat when the eight migrants died, they asked me why there was no safe way for them to reach the UK.

Both said they dreamed of being home with their family but that their homes were destroyed, and they had faced harassment in each country in which they arrived.

Now they had experienced the unimaginable – losing friends less than 30 miles from the UK. Heartbreakingly, they told me they had no choice but to try to make the journey again.

Inflatable dinghies believed to have been used by migrants to cross the English channel are stored in a Home Office compound (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

By spending one day speaking to the communities we work with in Calais, our political leaders would immediately understand why – despite their thirst to look tough on migration – their so-called deterrents change nothing. 

Security measures, including the constant cycle of aggressive police evictions of the camps, do nothing to deter people from wanting to claim asylum in the UK – they only force people to take more risks to do so.

This approach isn’t protecting anyone, it’s costing lives. 

Eight people lost their lives in Sunday’s tragedy. Two weeks ago, 12 people, including a pregnant woman and children, died in similar circumstances. 

Each loss of life was preventable. And I don’t believe these things would happen if our political leaders were willing to act with an ounce of compassion and humanity.

Authorities using a tractor to pull a damaged migrants’ boat after a failed attempt to cross the English Channel (Picture: BERNARD BARRON/AFP via Getty Images)

We are part of a community where grieving has become commonplace. There should be nothing normal about a vigil, but here in Calais it is becoming the norm. The grief leaves us heartbroken. The anger fuels us to continue.

No one chooses to cross the English Channel in a small boat because it’s their preferred mode of transportation to claim asylum in the UK. It’s their only option.

The last UK Government effectively cut every safe route for people to claim asylum before arriving.

If, for example, you are fleeing war in Sudan, or trouble in Eritrea, there is no way for you to claim asylum without physically being in the UK. 

It’s the absence of safe routes that has fuelled Channel crossings. 

And it’s human beings, many of whom have already survived unimaginable horrors such as war and torture, that are losing their lives.

If Keir Starmer’s dehumanisation of refugees continues, more lives could be lost (Picture: REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo)

All of this would be fixed by introducing safe routes. Two and a half years ago, when Russia invaded Ukraine, our team in Calais supported Ukranians who were arriving in Calais in the hope of seeking safety in the UK. 

Very quickly, the then-UK Government created the Ukrainian visa scheme and almost overnight the Ukrainian refugee community here dispersed. With the option of applying for a travel visa, no Ukranian was forced to pay a smuggling gang to cross the Channel – they had the choice of a safe route.

If the new Government wants to tackle crossings, and end the preventable loss of life on our border, they will introduce those same routes for people fleeing other war-torn countries. 

If Keir Starmer’s dehumanisation of refugees continues, more lives could be lost.

So Prime Minister, the choice is yours.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.