The Sunday Times The Sunday Times November 28, 2021November 28, 2021 1919
He told
me he
paid
€2,
Under tarpaulin shelters in
a Dunkirk migrant camp,
young men hold up
smartphones showing
pictures of friends who
have been missing since
the Channel sinking. They
wait for news, and for the
weather to clear so they can
make the same journey.
At least 27 drowned after
their dinghy set off for
England last Tuesday but
the only victim whose
identity has been
confirmed is Baran Nouri
Hamadami, 24, from
Souran in the far northeast
of Iraqi Kurdistan. She had
been travelling to join her
husband in the UK.
Relatives of three
missing friends, Rezhwan
Yasin, Zanear Mustafa and
Mohammed Kader, all
about 20 years old and from
Ranya, in the Kurdish region
of northern Iraq, posted
photos on Kurdish social
media sites. Ahmed Ismail,20, said that his friend
Rezhwan had travelled for
two months across Europe
to get to France: “He used
to sleep in the camp next to
me, and I know he went on
to that boat. He was a good
friend.”
Mohammed Pirot, 19,
feared for his friend Zanear.
“He tell me, ‘I go to England
in boat’ and I haven’t heard
from him since. He had
travelled for 45 days. He
told me he paid €2,500. He
had a life jacket but I think
the boat was lots of people.
I am so sad and worried.”
Despite his friend’s
possible death, Pirot, who
along with hundreds of
other people is sleeping
rough in tents and shelters
in the camp next to a
disused railway track in
Grande Synthe, says he will
not be deterred from
crossing on a boat.
Shakar Ali, 25, and
Harem Pirot, 27, also from
Ranya, are believed to have
been on the boat as well.Sangar Ahmed, 33, who
was their neighbour in Iraq
when they were young and
met them twice on the
months-long journey to
France, said that the
families of the two men
were “very worried”.
Ahmed, who sneaked
into Britain on a lorry when
he was 19 and lived in
Manchester for ten years
working in a pizza
restaurant and a bakery
before being deported to
Iraq in 2019, had been
reunited with the pair lastHugo Daniel Dunkirk Sunday at the camp. He
said: “They are my two
friends since my childhood.
No one can contact them. I
feel devastated. Shakar was
one of my most lovely
friends. He was really
bright, he graduated four
years ago in geology. One
of his friends joined a
protest in the city against
the Kurdistan Democratic
Party but unfortunately he
was killed. That’s why
Shakar wanted to migrate
to the UK for a new life. He
didn’t believe the country
could change and if he tried
to change it he might be
killed like his friend. So he
completely lost hope, that’s
why he decided to migrate.”
Ahmed shared a photo of
Pirot at the camp just
before he made the fatal
voyage. He said his friend
had also seen no hope for a
future in Ranya. The pair are
believed to have paid
$13,000 each to Kurdish
people smugglers in Iraq to
get to Calais. The tripincluded getting a boat
from Turkey to Italy. They
are then said to have
agreed a price of £2,
with smugglers for the boat
across the Channel.
The pair had attempted
the crossing more than
once, according to Ahmed,
most recently last Sunday
when French police turned
them around at the beach
and destroyed the boat.
“I am worried the boat
[that sank] was
overloaded,” he said. “They
may have been forced on to
the boat at gunpoint.
Everyone has heard stories
about migrants being
threatened with a gun if
they try to back out at the
last minute. The people
smugglers are brutal.”
At least four children and
teenagers from
Afghanistan are said to be
missing — Riaz Mohammed,
12, his cousin Share
Mohammed, 17, and two of
their friends: Palowan, 16,
and Shinai, 15.BROKEN DREAMS FRIENDS OF THE MISSING FEAR WORST IN DUNKIRK
other crew members reached
into the water to turn her on
to her back before gently
lifting her on board they saw
that she was pregnant.
In the next 20 minutes,
they pulled out five more
bodies, all men, the youngest
about 15 and the others in
their twenties and thirties.
The French coastguard
recovered 19 bodies and thehelicopters overhead. “All we
knew when we received the
call was that there was a man
overboard,” said Holy, who
was out of his Calais home
and on to the lifeboat within
ten minutes of the alert.
“Then as we got closer, we
saw something in the water. It
was a woman lying face
down.”
When Holy and the twobreaks out over Channel deaths
‘As our lifeboat got
closer we saw
something in the
water. It was a
woman, face down’
A French lifeboatman called
to last week’s migrant
disaster has said he pulled the
body of a pregnant woman
from the water, followed by
five male corpses.
Régis Holy, 65, a volunteer
for the SNSM, France’s
equivalent of the RNLI, has
helped to rescue about 500
people off Calais this year, a
huge rise over previous years.
“It is hellish, an enormous
task looking for these
unfortunate migrants coming
from every direction,” he
said.
Holy was speaking as
France again hit back at
claims that it was not doing
enough to combat peoplesmugglers. General Frantz
Tavart, 51, head of the
gendarmerie in the Pas de
Calais region, said his forces
had seized more than 100
tons of material from people
smugglers this year, slashing
their boats on the beach as
they tried to set off, and
seizing outboard motors.
Holy and three fellow
volunteers on the 60ft
lifeboat, Notre dame du
Risban, were scrambled at
3pm on Wednesday and
ordered to a position about 15
nautical miles off the coast,
just on the French side of the
border with British waters. As
they arrived 40 minutes later,
a French coastguard vessel
was on the scene and there
were French and BritishPeter Conradi Calais helicopters another two. The
five men were all wearing
lifejackets but the pregnant
woman was not, though Holy
said it may have fallen off.
“People put on a lifejacket
and think that’s enough to
keep them safe, but they
often don’t know how to tie
them and they come off when
they hit the water.”
Holy, a grandfather and
retired technician, said the
refugees’ dinghy, about 30ft
long, was typical of the
cheap, single-use craft
increasingly used in recent
months.
“Two months ago, there
were lots of people from
Africa in inflatable three-man
canoes. It was completely
mad,” he said. “Now it’sbigger boats. They can get as
many as 50 people in them.
“They are also very light so
they can be transported in
the backs of cars from
Germany or eastern Europe.
You see people carrying them
across the beach on their
backs like a tortoise. But they
are also very fragile, not
sturdy at all and don’t even
have handles on the side. All
you need is a small rip, which
will then get bigger and they
will sink. That’s how these
accidents happen.”
Often the motors are so
poorly attached to their
untreated backboard that
they fall off, leaving the craft
drifting in one of the world’s
busiest shipping lanes.
@Peter_ConradiFrench police slash inflatables to stop them being usedSUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL