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30th Nov 2021

Channel crossing survivor says victims ‘held hands to try and save each other’ as boat capsized

Danny Jones

Yet another tragic story from the Channel

A survivor from the recent Channel crossing tragedy has spoken out about his experience trying to reach the UK from Calais and what those onboard did to try and survive.

21-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim Zada was one of only two survivors after at least 27 bodies were recovered from the incident on Wednesday November 24, where 33 passengers climbed into an inflatable dinghy that filled with water almost immediately.

As he details in the video below, the group “started to hold each other’s hands; each person was holding hands with the person next to them in order not to sink or drown”.

As he goes on to say in this interview taken from Rudaw TV, this process went on for hours and “as the sun rose in the early morning, people couldn’t take it any more and they all gave up on their lives”. Truly a harrowing image.

Among the first of the bodies to be recovered on Wednesday were three children and a pregnant mother who were identified among the dead; another was confirmed to be one Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, a 24-year-old Kurdish woman who was simply “desperate” to be reunited with her fiancé on British soil.

These are the only details that matter: human stories from real people looking to make a better life, just like all of us. People, not migrants.

Our PoliticsJOE team recently travelled to Calais to see what life is like in migrant camps.

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