Five hundred migrants desperate for political asylum in Europe had successfully crossed the English Channel between Friday and Sunday, and others wanted to follow in their footsteps. But the weather conditions deteriorated early Monday morning, with snow, strong waves and a drop in temperatures below freezing, to the point of turning the already dangerous journey into a hellish odyssey. A boat with fifty people on board filled with water yesterday thirty kilometers off the coast of Dover, and four drowned.
The Kent County Coastguard service received the S.O.S around three in the morning from a fishing vessel that was operating in the area despite bad weather and detected the boat in distress. Her crew carried out the initial assistance, later obtaining the support of helicopters, patrols, the Navy and the French Navy, in a joint operation between London and Paris. Forty-three immigrants were rescued, of which 31 were pulled from the water (they were dressed in T-shirts and, in the best of cases, light jackets). The outside temperature was zero degrees.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is in many ways a lucky man. Billionaire (he is the richest member of the House of Commons), with a stable family, two daughters, two fabulous residences in central London (one for guests only), a mansion in the Yorkshire countryside and a house in Santa Monica (California). He doesn’t have to save money to buy a pair of Prada shoes for six hundred euros, or limited edition sneakers that cost almost as much. But politically, he doesn’t have the gift of opportunity. After a month missing in action, to the point that a country in crisis wondered if there was really anyone in Downing Street, yesterday he decided to announce a series of measures to “make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to cross the English Channel.” ” and abuse “English generosity” in granting political asylum. Only a few hours later, the shipwreck occurred and the deaths of the four people who dreamed of an opportunity to work, earn money and enjoy a better life.
One of the measures announced by Sunak consists of the assignment of four hundred additional officials to process political asylum requests by express means, of which there are 150,000 accumulated, several tens of thousands for more than two years. Another is to house immigrants not in hotels as up to now (at a cost of six million euros per day for the taxpayer), but in disused military, cultural and sports facilities. Finally, deny the Albanians (35% of those who cross the Channel) the status of “victims of modern slavery” and sign an agreement with the Tirana government for their urgent return to their country of origin.
Sunak hoped that the measures would create the impression that his government “is doing something” to curb boat trafficking, an issue that especially irritates conservative voters, and especially those of the working class who in the last elections were left behind. seduce by Boris Johnson to carry out Brexit and “control the borders”. Without them, Sunak has no chance of retaining power.
But instead of his “toughness on immigrants” being the cover of at least one news cycle, he found the tragedy of the four dead and a video –recorded by one of the crew members of the fishing boat who first came to the rescue– in which they can be seen screaming in despair, with their life jackets over their shirts, asking for help while the boat threatened to sink completely. If the outside temperature was zero degrees, the sea temperature must be a few below zero. Impossible to survive more than a few minutes. Several were rescued with ropes after falling into the water, covered with blankets and treated for hypothermia.
“Situations like this are the reason why we need to put an end to the illegal trafficking of migrants through the Canal, it is something very dangerous and a business controlled by mafias that exploit people in an inhumane way,” the minister said in Parliament. of the Interior, Suella Braverman (far-right and Eurosceptic), the same one that is determined to reduce the arrival of foreigners to a few tens of thousands a year – now it is half a million – and send asylum seekers to Rwanda (and other countries ) while their cases are being processed.
This is the biggest tragedy of this nature in the English Channel since November last year, when 27 immigrants died when their inflatable boat sank. But since then, the number of attempts to make the crossing has multiplied as numerous legal routes into Britain have been cut off, and 45,000 people have made it successfully so far this year. London has increased the money it pays Paris to increase surveillance of its beaches.
Prime Minister Sunak needs (among other things) to control immigration to try to stay in power. Millions of Britons lament that foreigners “create pressure” on social services, housing, schools and hospitals. Meanwhile, immigrants like the four who died yesterday are risking their lives to flee countries at war and subsistence economies.
