The Observer
News 25.08.19 3‘It’s my dream’: child refugee who
arrived in a dinghy takes to the air
The young Afghan who
crossed the Channel on
Christmas Day wants
to be a n a i rl i ne pi lot.
Mark Townsend
watches her fi rst fl ight
Piloting the Piper Archer was Diane
Ellender, who several minutes into
the journey turned to the teenager
and said: “You have control.”
Hossaini took over an aircraft for
the fi rst time, the opening moments
of a journey that will involve 45 hours
of training and nine written exams
before she secures her private pilot’s
licence.
She guided the aircraft for 12
miles up the coast over the port of
Folkestone towards Dover before
turning back. “She was very calm,
which is a good sign, and really
enjoyed it, particularly the views
as she flew over Folkestone,” said
Ellender.
Moments after landing, Hossaini
was already looking ahead to her next
lesson. “I really enjoyed it, even the bit
where it was bumpy,” she said.
But even as she plans her future,
refugees like Hossaini remain the
targets of political attack, including
from the prime minister. On Friday,Boris Johnson appeared to prejudge
asylum claims by warning migrants
that the UK would “send you back” if
they attempted to cross without the
right papers.
At the same time, Priti Patel, the
home secretary, announced she
would be holding talks with her
French counterpart after 64 migrants
attempted to cross the Channel on
Thursday. More than 900 people,
including at least 80 children, have
made the crossing in small boats so
far this year.
For those looking after those chil-dren such rhetoric from the govern-
ment is depressing. Bridget Chapman
of Kent Refugee Action Network
(Kran) , a charity that has supported
hundreds of unaccompanied minors
who have arrived in Kent, said: “It’s
an incredibly irresponsible thing to
say. The prime minister knows that
it’s morally not the right thing to do
but also knows that legally he can’t
send them back.
“People arriving on these dinghies
often have very strong asylum claims.
I am confused why the prime minis-
ter would say that.”
Before the fl ight Hossaini oozed
confidence. “Nothing scares me,
sometimes I see a plane crash on the
news but it doesn’t scare me, only one
in every few thousand crashes.”
Her calm disposition has come in
useful. Her flight over Kent began
with an overland journey from
Tehran, where she had been living as
a refugee with her Afghan parents, to
the Turkish coast. She survived the
notoriously dangerous sea crossing
to Greece. But she later described the
Channel crossing as much worse.
From Athens, Hossaini flew to
Austria before making her way to
northern France. Her mother remains
in a Greek refugee camp.
“She is OK and very happy to hear
that I am fl ying, maybe one day I can
get her,” said Hossaini, who in the
earlier Observer article was called
Ameena to protect her identity as a
minor.
While her asylum application
is being processed she is studying
English and maths at Canterbury
College. In the meantime she is mak-
ing plans for a career as a pilot.
“I will fl y the crew at Kran on holi-
day to wherever they want,” she said.
Chapman answered: “Thailand
please!” Hossaini smiled: “OK, sure.”LEFT
Zainab Hossaini
before her fl ying
lesson yesterday.
Photograph by
Sonja Horsman/
the ObserverBELOW
A dinghy similar
to the one in
which Hossaini
crossed the
Channel.
APThe last time she saw France, Zainab
Hossaini was a shivering 17-year-old
refugee sitting in a boat in the early
hours of Christmas Day, preparing to
make the treacherous journey across
the English Channel as an unaccom-
panied minor.
Yesterday she glimpsed its fuzzy
coastline while piloting an aircraft
2,000ft above Kent. Hossaini, who
was in the middle of her fi rst fl y-
ing lesson, said afterwards: “The
view was so good, what I had always
dreamed of.”
When the Observer published an
account of Hossaini’s Channel cross-
Fans support
Olivia Colman
over ‘leftwing
face’ jibe
Actors and writers have criticised
Daily Telegraph columnist Charles
Moore for claiming that Olivia
Colman has “a distinctly leftwing
face” in remarks that suggested she
was unsuitable to portray the Queen
in the new series of The Crown, out on
Netfl ix in November.
The suggestion provoked bemuse-
ment on Twitter, with comedian David
Baddiel yesterday calling it “idiot col-umnist rhetoric” and Little Britain
actor Matt Lucas saying it did not
make the remotest sense.
“Speculation builds about how
well Olivia Colman will succeed
Claire Foy as the Queen in the
coming third series of The Crown,”
Moore wrote last Monday, in a
column that was widely shared
on social media throughout the
week.
“Ms Colman herself has
expressed anxiety on this
score. There is no doubt thatshe is one of the best actresses of the
age, but I have a doubt, too. She has a
distinctly leftwing face. This is hard
to describe, but easy to recognise.
“It is something to do with look-
ing slightly resentful and ironic at
the idea of having to play a public
role which satisfi es the demands of
others. The real live Queen has
no such face – allowing almost
no difference discernible inpublic between the role and the per-
son. I hasten to add that I have no idea
what Olivia Colman’s political views
are. I just have a hunch, which I hope
will be proved wrong.”
Colman won the best actress Oscar
this year for her performance as
Queen Anne in The Favourite.
Writer Will Black tweeted: “To be
fair though, Charles Moore looks
exactly like my perception of a cal-
lous, creepy, misogynistic, embit-
tered, out of touch, enraged, impotent
and dated Tory hack.”Mattha Busbying it generated widespread sympa-
thy for the plight of the refugees. In
the interview she told of her ambition
to become an airline pilot. Last week
Hossaini, who is from Afghanistan,
turned 18 and a reader offered to pay
for her initial fl ying lessons. She had
her fi rst one yesterday.
At 11.14am her Piper Archer plane
took off from runway 03 at Lydd air-
fi eld near Ashford, about a mile from
the coas t. Minutes later, with the sun
burning off the morning mist and
more of France coming into view, the
aircraft turned towards the Channel.
Below lay the beaches where hun-
dreds of migrants have landed in din-
ghies over the past year. Another 11
aboard a small boat were intercepted
by the Border Force on Friday.
At about 11.30am Hossaini’s
plane fl ew over the sloping beach of
Folkestone where she had landed in
the UK eight months earlier, cold and
vomiting with seven others at 2.40am
on Christmas Day.‘Nothing scares me,
sometimes I see a
plane crash on the
news, but it doesn’t
scare me’
Zainab Hossaini
Olivia Colman plays the
Queen in The Crown.t how
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in a
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