CALAIS, France - One of two known survivors of the Wednesday night English Channel boat disaster and a relative of two of the migrants have accused the British coastguard of ignoring repeated calls for help from the drowning migrants while they were reportedly in British waters. In an exclusive interview with Rudaw on Sunday, the survivor detailed the horror as he watched as many as 31 people drown, one-by-one.
"The right side of the boat was losing air. Some people were pumping air into it and others were bailing the water from the boat," said 21-year-old Mohammed Shekha Ahmad, a Kurd who resided in Qaladze town in Kurdistan Region's Sulaimani province until about six weeks ago. "Then after a bit, we called the French police and said, 'help us, our pump stopped working.'"
"Then [we] sent [our] location to the French police and they said, 'you're in British waters'... we called Britain. They said call the French police," Mohammed recounted, visibly distraught from his near death experience. "Two people were calling - one was calling France and the other was calling Britain." The migrants made their calls in English.
A relative of two of the victims, Taha (not his real name), who was in contact with them via Facebook on Tuesday night, tracking their location live, also alleges that the migrants reached British waters. “Forty-five minutes before they drowned, they called and said they were in British waters but could not move. They drowned in British waters and the waves took the bodies to French waters,” the relative, who does not want to be identified for legal reasons, told Rudaw via telephone.
“I believe they were five kilometers inside British waters,” he said. Asked if his relative on the boat called British police, he replied “100 per cent, 100 percent and they [British police] even said they would come [to the rescue].”
Taha said the boat was in French waters when the problems started, but the smuggler forced them to continue moving towards Britain for another 45 minutes. Taha tracked the boat’s movement live on Facebook when the dinghy’s engine stopped working. “I had their live location, but you know the live location is only available for an hour,” he said.
Rudaw English on Sunday evening emailed the British Foreign Office and Maritime and Coastguard Agency to ask if they logged a distress call on the night of the incident. The Home Office responded on behalf of the British government, disputing the account and a spokesperson said in an email to Rudaw English that the incident happened in French territorial waters. The allegations are “completely untrue,” the spokesperson wrote on Monday morning. “Officials here confirmed last night that the incident happened well inside French Territorial Waters, so they led on the rescue effort, but deployed a helicopter in support of the search and rescue mission as soon as we were alerted.” He also advised Rudaw to contact the Coastguard.
Rudaw English again emailed the Coastguard on Monday morning, asking if, six days after the incident, the agency had investigated whether there was a distress call on the night of the incident, and is yet to receive a detailed answer.
Mohammed is adamant that the boat had reached British waters. "The British police didn't help us and the French police said, 'you're in British waters, we can't come,'" he recounted. "Then, as we were slowly drowning, the people lost hope and let go. Then the waves took us to back to France."
"Britain should have come on board [and rescued us] because we drowned in the [English] Channel," he said as he sobbed. "They didn't help us or do anything for us."
Rudaw has pieced together the journey of the migrant boat based on testimony of the survivor and the relative who was in contact with two people on the boat that night.
Mohammed, who survived the harrowing ordeal, appears visibly distraught and fails to remember the age of his sister who was the motivation for his journey. He hoped to make money in the UK to pay for her treatment. This was not Mohammed’s first attempt to reach Britain. He had tried a few days earlier and been rescued by a French vessel.
