LONDON: A Somali survivor of the deadliest “small boats” Channel crossing on record told a UK inquiry Tuesday that drowning migrants were “treated like animals” and died awaiting rescue.
Issa Mohamed Omar was one of only two survivors after an inflatable dinghy carrying people across from France capsized on November 24, 2021, killing at least 27 people.
The victims were mainly Iraqi Kurds and included at least seven women, a 16-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl. Four people remain missing.
Even though passengers made distress calls, they were “left in the water for more than 12 hours without rescue,” according to Rory Phillips, a lawyer advising the inquiry in London.
Victims screamed in the water and drowned in the dark awaiting help, Omar told the inquiry, saying it felt as though they were “treated like animals.”
“If rescue (had) come quickly, I believe half of those people would be still alive today,” the 31-year-old said, speaking via video link and an interpreter.
“Because we have been seen as refugees, that’s the reason why I believe the rescue did not come at all,” he said.
More than 36,800 people crossed the Channel between the UK and France in 2024, up 25 percent on the previous year.
The two countries have for years sought to stop people making the dangerous crossing, but migrants often pay smugglers thousands of euros for the passage aboard small boats.
Omar said their crowded boat began to capsize early in the morning, and that many of the distress calls to British emergency services went unheeded during the “harrowing” ordeal.
“All night I was holding to what was remaining of the boat,” he said. “We were all in shock, I never thought I would experience such a thing.”
He said he was eventually rescued by French fishermen and spent four months recovering in hospital in France from injuries he sustained as the boat capsized.
Omar said he left Somalia after his father was killed in the civil war and told the inquiry he had hoped to reach the UK to help his family.
As a survivor, Omar said he now had a responsibility to act as a “voice for those people who passed away.”
The UK inquiry focuses on the role of the British authorities and will seek to identify “lessons” that can be learned.
It takes place in parallel with legal proceedings in France, where seven military personnel have been charged with failing to assist a person in danger and several suspected smugglers are being prosecuted.
The UK inquiry will also take evidence from members of the British coast guard and rescue services. The hearings are due to run until March 27.
Survivor of deadly Channel sinking says migrants ‘treated like animals’
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Survivor of deadly Channel sinking says migrants ‘treated like animals’
- The victims were mainly Iraqi Kurds and included at least seven women, a 16-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl
- Victims screamed in the water and drowned in the dark awaiting help, Omar told the inquiry, saying it felt as though they were “treated like animals”
Bangladesh begins exhuming mass grave from 2024 uprising
- The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power — deaths that formed part of her conviction last month for crimes against humanity
DHAKA: Bangladeshi police began exhuming on Sunday a mass grave believed to contain around 114 unidentified victims of a mass uprising that toppled autocratic former prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year.
The UN-supported effort is being advised by Argentine forensic anthropologist Luis Fondebrider, who has led recovery and identification missions at mass graves worldwide for decades.
The bodies were buried at the Rayerbazar Graveyard in Dhaka by the volunteer group Anjuman Mufidul Islam, which said it handled 80 unclaimed bodies in July and another 34 in August 2024 — all people reported to have been killed during weeks of deadly protests.
The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power — deaths that formed part of her conviction last month for crimes against humanity.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief Md Sibgat Ullah said investigators believed the mass grave held roughly 114 bodies, but the exact number would only be known once exhumations were complete.
“We can only confirm once we dig the graves and exhume the bodies,” Ullah told reporters.
- ‘Searched for him’ -
Among those hoping for answers is Mohammed Nabil, who is searching for the remains of his brother Sohel Rana, 28, who vanished in July 2024.
“We searched for him everywhere,” Nabil told AFP.
He said his family first suspected Rana’s death after seeing a Facebook video, then recognized his clothing — a blue T-shirt and black trousers — in a photograph taken by burial volunteers.
Exhumed bodies will be given post-mortem examinations and DNA testing. The process is expected to take several weeks to complete.
“It’s been more than a year, so it won’t be possible to extract DNA from the soft tissues,” senior police officer Abu Taleb told AFP. “Working with bones would be more time-consuming.”
Forensic experts from four Dhaka medical colleges are part of the team, with Fondebrider brought in to offer support as part of an agreement with the UN rights body the OHCHR.
“The process is complex and unique,” Fondebrider told reporters. “We will guarantee that international standards will be followed.”
Fondebrider previously headed the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, founded in 1984 to investigate the tens of thousands who disappeared during Argentina’s former military dictatorship.
Authorities say the exhumed bodies will be reburied in accordance with religious rites and their families’ wishes.
Hasina, convicted in absentia last month and sentenced to death, remains in self-imposed exile in India.
