In Calais, those who help migrants often say that the Franco-British border kills. It could be said that, as the years go by, it does not do so in the same way. For a long time, migrants died when hit by cars on the expressway leading to the ferry port or when they fell off the semi-trailers in which they were trying to hide. Since 2018, they have increasingly been drowning in the Strait of Dover. And now, before even reaching the open sea, they die trampled by their unfortunate companions in the overloaded inflatable boats in which they undertake the perilous sea crossing.
Sara Alhashimi was 7 years old; Dina Al Shamari was 21. The first was suffocated on April 23 a few meters from the beach of Wimereux (Pas-de-Calais). In images filmed the night of the tragedy by the English channel BBC, we see a group of a hundred people hastily boarding a boat while the police try to stop them with a lot of tear gas. We can see the little girl on her father's shoulders managing to reach the boat and the next moment disappearing, never to be seen again alive. It was the fourth time that her family had attempted the crossing. Four other people died of asphyxiation that day.
Dina died on a boat on the night of July 27-28, alongside her two younger sisters, Nour and Fatima, her little brother, Abdallah, and her parents. It was the family's fifth attempt at crossing. The mother, whom The World met her, remembers that Dina was the first to get on board the inflatable boat, ” satisfied “in a hurry to reach the goal. A group of men followed. “The smugglers told us there would be sixty of us, but there were many more.”reports Amira Al Shamari.
“People fought on board”
The mass of bodies piled up killed his eldest daughter in a few fleeting moments. “His sister Nour was screaming “My sister is going to die, save her! She’s going to suffocate! Call for help!” Some said not to do anything, that we would arrive soon. They threatened to throw her into the water. People fought on board. It lasted an hour until help arrived.” Migrants refused help and continued on their way to England, others were disembarked at Wimereux, with the lifeless body of the young “bidoun”, an undocumented and stateless Arab minority in Kuwait.
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Source: Lemonde
