Suzanne Harrington: Surely humanity has evolved since Bethlehem?
As we gear up to commemorate a Middle Eastern migrant family giving birth in a stable because they were temporarily homeless, actual Middle Eastern migrant families continue to wash up on the Kent coast on glorified lilos. Two-thirds of those who attempt the 21-mile sea journey between Calais and Dover have legitimate family reasons to come, but no legitimate way of actioning it; to claim asylum in Britain, your feet have got to be already on British soil.
So for ages, people bunked into lorries, or clung to the underneath of them, only to be spat out on the side of unknown UK roads. Some died, many made it. My friend Samir came in the back of an onion lorry, hiding inside a cold dark airless space – the sniffer dogs at the port of Calais could only smell onions. Samir made it, and went straight to a police station to claim asylum; they threw him out, and he slept in a London park. As a victim of torture in his country of origin, he was eventually granted asylum. He runs a community volunteer group now helping others and is studying for another degree.
But then the UK government paid the French government millions to erect not a centre to process the legitimate asylum claims of people like Samir stuck destitute in Calais, but to erect giant fences topped with razor wire all around the port, and around the mouth of the Channel Tunnel. No more bunking on lorries, with its risks of suffocation, freezing, or falling off and becoming human roadkill – which was still the safer option. Now, people are paying around 5,000-6,000 euros per head to people traffickers to cross the world’s busiest shipping lane in the kind of inflatables your kids might play on at the beach. The conditions on the ground in Northern France are unspeakable: small children living in freezing scrubland. The work of NGOs is being done by young unfunded volunteers providing basic food. The ever-present threat of the French riot police.
Of the 27 people who drowned recently in the icy sea, four were from one family – mother Khazal, with her daughters Hadia and Hasti, aged 22 and 7, and her son Mubin, 16. No parent puts their children to sea on an inflatable if there are safer options. One of the few survivors of that awful day, a 21-year old called Mohammed, was sent back to France; he says he will try the crossing again, to get a job in the UK to pay for surgery for his sister. Imagine his trauma.
Meanwhile, Britain and France squabble over fish, and who is responsible for what they are calling the ‘migrant’ ‘crisis’. Let ‘em drown seems to be official UK policy, distracting with a lot of hot air about evil traffickers. The traffickers are merely supplying to demand. What is needed is a safe way for people to claim asylum before they become actual corpses. I mean, humanity has evolved a bit since that birth in the stable, hasn’t it?
