LONDON: An Iraqi girl who drowned trying to cross the English Channel died because of “people smugglers with no morals,” her family have said.
Rula, 7, fell into the River Aa 20 miles inland from Calais in northern France. She was traveling with her parents, four other adults and 10 children aged below 13 years when the boat they were traveling to the UK in capsized.
At her funeral this week, her mother Nour told Sky News: “She was beautiful and I lost her. My little princess. She was 7 years old, she had seen nothing in this world. We just wanted to make their lives better.”
Her father Mohammed said: “The people smugglers have no morals. Every day, I think of dying a hundred times. The water came into the cabin and she was stuck.”
The family, who said they paid around £5,000 ($6,432) for the boat trip, said the vessel had no life vests and was falling apart.
“The smugglers had left us. I had to rescue my wife, my son and another person. But I couldn’t rescue her. My daughter died and the reason why is because of the people smugglers who have no morals,” Mohammed said.
“They fooled us, took money from us and threw us in the water without any mercy. They do not see humans as humans — they only see materials and money.”
The family say they will attempt another crossing to the UK.
Three people accused of people smuggling have been arrested.
Charlotte Huet, the local prosecutor for Dunkirk, said Rula’s death was caused by “cardiorespiratory arrest,” and an enquiry into “manslaughter, unintentionally causing injuries, criminal conspiracy and aiding illegal immigration within an organized gang while endangering others” had been opened.
A source told Metro newspaper that the route the boat had been meant to take “has been used by people smugglers before. On this occasion, the boat was overloaded and too flimsy to support those onboard, who included women and children.
“There was chaos in the water after the boat collapsed, and it led to a 7-year-old girl losing her life.”
Last week, three migrants went missing in the Channel amid poor weather conditions after their UK-bound small boat capsized. One body has been recovered so far. Another five migrants also died crossing the Channel on Jan. 14.
Last year, around 29,000 people crossed the Channel from France to the UK in small boats. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made stopping the boats a core pledge of his government ahead of elections expected later this year.
Iraqi family blames ‘smugglers who have no morals’ for death of girl, 7, crossing English Channel
https://arab.news/w2dsd
Iraqi family blames ‘smugglers who have no morals’ for death of girl, 7, crossing English Channel
- Rula died after boat carrying 17 people capsized
- Mother: ‘She had seen nothing in this world. We just wanted to make their lives better’
Poland slow to counter Russia’s ‘existential threat’: general
- The general highlighted a low “pace of technical modernization,” compared to increases in the army’s size
- Kukula said the Polish army should reach 500,000 soldiers by 2039
WARSAW: Russia poses an “existential threat” to Poland and its military is lagging, the country’s armed forces chief warned senior officials on Wednesday.
Poland, the largest country on NATO’s eastern flank and a neighbor of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, is the western alliance’s largest spender in relative terms.
This year, the country is allocating 4.8 percent of its GDP to defense, just shy of the alliance’s five percent target to be met by 2035.
However, that record defense spending was not enough to “make up for nearly three decades of chronic underfunding of the armed forces,” General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of the general staff, argued at the meeting, which included top officers, the defense minister and Poland’s president.
The general highlighted a low “pace of technical modernization,” compared to increases in the army’s size.
Kukula said the Polish army should reach 500,000 soldiers by 2039, compared with around 210,000 at present.
As a result of a lack of updates, some new Polish units “are not achieving combat readiness,” due to insufficient equipment, rather than a personnel shortage, the general argued.
Meanwhile, he added, “the Russian Federation remains an existential threat to Poland.”
Russia “is constantly reorganizing its forces, drawing on the lessons from its aggression in Ukraine, and building up the capacity for a conventional conflict with NATO countries,” he stressed.
Poland is to receive 43.7 billion euros ($51,5 billion) in loans under the European Union’s Security Action For Europe (SAFE) scheme, designed to strengthen Europe’s defensive capabilities.
Warsaw plans to use these funds to boost domestic arms production.
The Polish government claims that Poland will be able to access SAFE finance even if President Karol Nawrocki — backed by Poland’s conservative-nationalist opposition — vetos a law setting out domestic arrangements for its implementation.
Law and Justice (PiS) — the main opposition party — argues that SAFE could become a new tool for Brussels to place undue pressure on Poland, thanks to a planned mechanism for monitoring the funds, which they claim risks undermining Polish sovereignty.
