Dinghy deaths tragedy brings home hostility to the world’s desperate

Closing off all safer options forces abject refugees to approach shores by the most perilous means, writes Diane Taylor and Angelique Chrisafis 

A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, by the RNLI, following a small boat incident in the Channel after dozens died in the worst-recorded migrant tragedy in the Channel. Picture:  PA 

The sheer terror of crossing the busy, dark and freezing cold Channel between France and Britain in a flimsy, unseaworthy boat was best described by 12-year-old Mohammad, who made the journey with his mother and eight-year-old sister in June after fleeing Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover. “It was like a horror movie,” he said.

And that was summer — not the depths of November.