The drowned dreams of 27 migrants after shipwreck in the English Channel

Glacial water seeps into the battered inflatable boat. On board, about thirty desperate migrants ask for help. Death will soon cut short the lives of at least 27 of them off the coast of Calais, in northern France.

Ten days after the tragedy of November 24, the deadliest since migrants tried to cross the canal to reach the English shores, it remains difficult to establish the nationality of the victims. The only thing that is known, according to the investigators, is that a large part of them were Iraqi Kurds.

In interviews with the Iraqi Kurdish network Rudaw, the two survivors – a Kurd and a Somali – claimed that there were Ethiopians, Iranians, Egyptians and a Vietnamese on the boat. Several Afghan families have also contacted the French authorities to try to find their relatives.

According to the investigation, the group would have set sail “at the end of the night” from Loon-Plage, near the town of Grande-Synthe, on the north coast of France, where multitudes of migrants camp.

His means of transport: a “long boat”, a low-quality, gray inflatable boat with a flexible bottom, destined for a single journey. According to the Kurdish survivor’s statements, an older Egyptian pilots the boat.

Call her fiancé

At least 19 men, seven women, two teenagers and a child have crammed into the boat, most wearing orange life jackets. According to the rescued Kurd, there are 33 passengers when the passers count them.

Conditions are good for the time. Because of the currents, it takes about ten hours to reach the English shores.

The boat is in the middle of the canal when it begins to fill with water and deflate, according to the Kurdish survivor’s account.

The pins try to inflate it with a pump, others try to bail water. Meanwhile, they are calling the British and French authorities, asking for help.

“The British police did not help us and the French police said: ‘you are in British waters, we cannot intervene,'” says the rescued. The maritime prefecture rules out that Cross Gris-Nez, the center that coordinates rescues at sea, did nothing if it was contacted.

Among the passengers is Maryam Nuri Hama Amin, a Kurdish woman in her 20s. She telephoned her fiancé, Karzan, with whom she hoped to meet again in the UK.

The boat is shipwrecked. Migrants cling to it, until they finally give up.

“A terror movie”

Karl Maquinghen, second in command on the French fishing boat “Saint-Jacques II”, is on the bridge when he suddenly spots a package. It is approximately 2:00 p.m.

It is a man in a plaid shirt and his head submerged in the water. “It passed 2 meters from the boat, or less,” says the fisherman.

About fifteen bodies float around, in a radius of about 100 meters. At the rear of the boat, the fishermen watch “a child pass by.” “A horror movie,” describes Maquinghen, who has been in the profession for 21 years.

Collecting the bodies is impossible, the fishing boat is too high. The crew reports their position to Cross Gris-Nez.

A French Navy patrol boat, the “Flamant”, located 4 km away, is dispatched to the area. In addition, the authorities launch two semi-rigid boats.

Heart massage

Lifeguards give priority to people whose heads are above the water. It is in those precious minutes when the two survivors save their lives: the Kurd is “very cold, but conscious”, while the Somali has “very low constants”, according to the maritime prefecture.

Two helicopters, one French and one British, locate the victims. The French aircraft will carry two.

The bodies are transferred aboard the mother ship, where a medical team performs cardiac massages on the victims, which still react, by reflex, to the stimuli. But the massages are in vain.

In addition to the two survivors, rescuers take ashore 19 other people, including a girl. They line bodies on the beach, in body bags, or under a sheet. The intervention lasted less than two hours.

For its part, the National Maritime Rescue Society sends the ship “Notre-Dame du Risban”, which recovers the bodies of six victims: four men, a young man and a pregnant woman.

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