Exiles wishing to return to England and associations gathered this Saturday, October 19 to pay tribute to the memory of the infant.
“I’m afraid for my child” but “what else can I do?” asks a candidate for exile. Of Eritrean nationality, the man was present in Calais this Saturday, October 19. In this city the commemoration was held in tribute to the infant who died in an attempt to illegally cross the Channel. He was only four months old.
The death of this baby, probably Iraqi Kurd, in the sinking of a makeshift boat where he was on Thursday with his parents and siblings, will not prevent the exile from trying his luck with his two-year-old baby.
“For me, it’s difficult because I have a child with me,” explains the 42-year-old man, who does not wish to give his name for fear of reprisals in his country. With his baby and his wife, he has already attempted twice to cross the Channel. “I’m afraid for my child,” he insists, “the sea is dangerous, but I have no other solution than to try to cross.” He thinks about the next departure, fatalistic: “What else can I do?”
“We all have families”
“Here, we all have families!” exclaims Thaeer, who came from Syria, a little further on, pointing to four accomplices, whose relatives have remained in the country. “I have two children in Syria, he has six children,” says the thirty-year-old who has already tried several times to reach England, and is preparing to do it again.
On the ground, a line was added to the long list listing the names of hundreds of deaths on the border between France and the United Kingdom since the end of the 1990s: “4 months, Kurd”.
Macabre countdown
For the associations present, this macabre countdown is not about to stop. “The increase in the number of people per boat, faster and further departures means that we have more deaths at the border and this is directly linked to the migration policy put in place,” indicates Axel Gaudinat, coordinator at within the Utopia 56 association in Calais.
The association calls for “welcome people with dignity in France and put in place safe passage routes for people who wish to seek asylum in England”.
The year 2024 is the deadliest since the start in 2018 of the phenomenon of small boats, these makeshift boats used to try to reach England, with at least 52 deaths in shipwrecks and fatal stampedes.
