LONDON: A seven-year-old Iraqi girl was crushed to death in a small, overcrowded boat as her family, who feared repatriation to Iraq after years living in Europe, attempted to cross the English Channel from France to the UK, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.
Sara Alhashimi was with her father Ahmed Alhashimi, mother Nour Al-Saeed, 13-year-old sister Rahaf and 8-year-old brother Hussam when they boarded an inflatable dinghy at Wimereux, south of Calais, last Tuesday.
But Alhashimi, 41, said that as it set sail, a large group of men rushed onboard and he lost his grip on his daughter. Unable to move because of the crush, he could not reach her and she was trampled. Four other people also died.
Alhashimi said he left Basra around 2010 after he was threatened by an armed group. Sara, his youngest child, was born in Belgium. The family had also lived in Sweden and submitted asylum applications to several EU countries but all were rejected. Their attempt to cross the channel last week was their fourth in two months since arriving in the Pas de Calais region, after police prevented the previous crossings.
Alhashimi told the BBC: “If I knew there was a 1 percent chance that I could keep the kids in Belgium or France or Sweden or Finland I would keep them there.
“All I wanted was for my kids to go to school. I didn’t want any assistance. My wife and I can work. I just wanted to protect them and their childhoods and their dignity.”
Smugglers promised a guaranteed place on a boat carrying 40 migrants for €1,500 ($1,600) per adult and €750 per child, Alhashimi said.
Sara was calm, he added, as he held her hand while they walked from a railway station and then hid in dunes overnight while waiting to board their vessel. The smugglers told the group to inflate the boat shortly before 6 a.m., carry it toward the shore and run as they approached the water.
As they did so, however, a teargas canister thrown by police went off beside them, Alhashimi said, and Sara began to scream. He had been carrying her on his shoulders but once inside the dinghy he put her down so he could help daughter Rahaf get onboard.
As he tried to reach Sara in the increasingly overcrowded boat, Alhashimi said he begged a Sudanese man, who had joined them at the last minute, to get out of the way. He even punched the man, with little effect.
“I just wanted him to move so I could pull my baby up,” he said. “That time was like death itself … We saw people dying. I saw how those men were behaving. They didn’t care who they were stepping on — a child, or someone’s head, young or old. People started to suffocate.
“I could not protect her. I will never forgive myself. But the sea was the only choice I had.”
Alhashimi said was only able to reach Sara after French rescuers had arrived at the boat and removed some of the 112 people onboard.
“I saw her head in the corner of the boat,” he said. “She was all blue. She was dead when we pulled her out. She wasn’t breathing.”
Belgium recently rejected an asylum claim by the family on the grounds that Basra was a safe place for them to return to. They had spent the past seven years living with a friend in Sweden.
“Everything that happened was against my will,” said Alhashimi. “I ran out of options. People blame me and say, ‘how could I risk my daughters?’ But I’ve spent 14 years in Europe and have been rejected.”

LONDON: A UK auction house has removed 18 ancient Egyptian human skulls from sale amid condemnation by a member of Parliament, The Guardian reported.

Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy said the sale of human remains for any purpose should be outlawed and described the trade as a “gross violation of human dignity.”

Semley Auctioneers in Dorset had listed the skulls with a guide price of £200-£300 ($250-$374) for each lot. The collection included 10 male skulls, five female and three of an uncertain sex.

Some of the skulls were listed as coming from Thebes and dating back to 1550 B.C.

They were originally collected by Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, an English soldier and archaeologist who established the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, which contains about 22,000 items.

After being housed at a separate private museum on his estate, the skulls were sold as part of a larger collection to his grandson, George Pitt Rivers, who was interned during the Second World War for supporting fascist leader Oswald Mosley.

Ribeiro-Addy said: “This despicable trade perpetuates a dark legacy of exploitation, colonialism and dehumanization. It is a gross violation of human dignity and an affront to the memory of those whose lives were unjustly taken, or whose final resting places were desecrated.

“We cannot allow profit to be made from the exploits of those who often hoped to find evidence for their racist ideology. It is imperative that we take decisive action to end such practices and ensure that the remains of those who were stolen from their homelands are respectfully repatriated.”

Britain has strict guidelines on the storage and treatment of human remains, but their sale is permitted provided they are obtained legally.

Saleroom, an online auction site, removed the skulls from sale after being contacted by The Guardian. Its website states that human remains are prohibited from sale.

A spokesperson said: “These items are legal for sale in the UK and are of archaeological and anthropological interest.

“However, after discussion with the auctioneer we have removed the items while we consider our position and wording of our policy.”

Prof. Dan Hicks, Pitt Rivers Museum’s curator of world archaeology, said: “This sale from a legacy colonial collection that was sold off in the last century shines a light on ethical standards in the art and antiquities market.

“I hope that this will inspire a new national conversation about the legality of selling human remains.”

Some of the skulls in the auction had been marked with phrenological measurements by the original collector, he said.

“The measurements of heads in order to try to define human types or racial type was something that Pitt Rivers was continuing to do with archaeological human remains in order to try to add to his interpretations of the past.”