The father of a seven-year-old girl who was crushed to death on board a boat full of migrants as they attempted to cross the English Channel has told of the horrible moment he realized he could not save his daughter.
Ahmed Alhashimi, 41, found himself trapped in an overloaded boat, struggling to breathe, shouting and begging people to move when the vessel capsized near Calais on Tuesday morning.
He told the BBC today how she struggled to keep her daughter Sara’s hand in the midst of growing panic, but lost her in the stampede and was unable to prevent her from being trampled to death.
‘That time it was like death itself. We saw people die. I saw how those men behaved. They didn’t care who they stepped on: a child or someone’s head, young or old,” Ahmed said through tears.
‘I couldn’t protect her. I will never forgive myself. But the sea was the only option she had.
Ahmed, an Iraqi who spent 14 years in Europe after fleeing his homeland, later revealed that he had spent years applying for asylum in the EU, only to be rejected again and again.
He and his family faced deportation back to Iraq, leaving them only one option: cross the English Channel to British shores.
‘If people were in my place, what would they do? Those who (criticize me) have not suffered what I have suffered. This was my last option,’ he declared.
Sara (pictured) died while trying to cross the Channel into Britain last week.
Sara (right) pictured with her father Ahmed
Five people, including a child, died while trying to cross the English Channel from France to the UK aboard a horrendously overcrowded boat.
Five people, including young Sara, were trampled or suffocated to death under the mass of bodies in the boat, which capsized off the coast of Wimereux, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, south of Calais.
The boat was horribly overcrowded: 112 people were crammed onto the boat by ruthless people smugglers, suspected of charging helpless migrants up to £1,000 a head to board the inflatable boat.
French police had tried to intervene but were repulsed by migrants and smugglers who threw sticks and flares at them.
As the crowd of migrants pressed in, Ahmed desperately tried to grab Sara, who had fallen under the feet of other passengers and was being trampled when the boat began to capsize.
But his hand came loose when the weight of his fellow travelers tore his arm from Ahmed’s grasp.
‘I’m a construction worker. I’m strong. But I couldn’t get my leg out. No wonder my little girl couldn’t do it either. She was under our feet,” Ahmed said.
When the ship was washed ashore, Sara was dead, the air forced from her tiny body by the crushing weight of humanity fighting to save itself.
He is survived by the rest of his family: his father Ahmed, his wife Nour Al Saeed and his two other children, Rahaf, 13, and Hussam, eight.
Sara (right) with her brother Hussam (left) and sister Rahaf (center)
A family drawing depicting father Ahmed and mother Nour Al Saeed, Sara and her brother and sister Hussam and Rahaf.
The small, overcrowded boat with 112 people on board briefly ran aground off the northern coast of France at Wimereux, near Boulogne-sur-Mer. The migrants are seen aboard the ship for the second time, setting off on a successful journey, after the tragedy occurred earlier that day.
Immigrants are seen beating French police using only wooden sticks and firecrackers.
The boat ran into difficulties off the coast of Wimereux, between Calais and Boulogne.
While Ahmed is Iraqi, Sara was born in Belgium and spent most of her life in Sweden.
It is understood that Belgium reportedly denied Ahmed asylum because his hometown of Basra in Iraq was considered safe.
He told the BBC that he had spent 14 years in the EU and that his children had spent the last seven years staying with relatives in Sweden.
But they were recently informed that they were being deported, even though all three children were in school and both parents worked.
This news is what prompted Ahmed to resort to attempting to cross the dangerous English Channel, arguing that he had no choice but to face deportation.
“I spent 14 years in Europe and they rejected me,” he said flatly, adding that if there was “a 1% chance that I could keep the children in Belgium, France or Sweden, I would keep them there.”
The family of five had already attempted to cross the English Channel three times, but were stopped twice by police on the beach.
Eva Jonsson, Sara’s primary school teacher in Udevalla, Sweden, described the seven-year-old as “kind and friendly” in a video message to the BBC.
She went on to describe the tragedy as “very unfortunate”, adding that she had taught another of Ahmed’s children and was “really shocked” by the news that they were going to be deported.
Once the migrants were on the boat, officials said there was nothing more they could do.
Yesterday morning emergency vehicles were seen next to an ice cream parlor on the beach in Wimereux, France.
An emergency medical services helicopter takes off from Wimereux on April 23
Ahmed and his family returned to the French coast, where French authorities provided them shelter while they waited to bury Sara’s body.
Meanwhile, many of the other migrants recovered the boat and then tried to cross again, arriving in British waters several hours later, where three suspected people smugglers were arrested.
A criminal investigation is underway, but it is already clear that the boat was unseaworthy, was not properly inflated and was dangerously overcrowded.
Craig Turner, deputy director of investigations at the National Crime Agency, said: “This tragic incident demonstrates once again the threat to life posed by these crossings and highlights why it is so important to target the criminal gangs involved in their operation. organization”.
“We will do everything we can with partners in the UK and France to obtain evidence, identify those responsible for this event and bring them to justice.”
A group of youths allegedly “rushed the ship” just as it was setting sail.
Guirec Le Bras, prosecutor of Boulogne, has also opened an investigation for “homicide, criminal association and assistance to foreigners in an irregular situation.”
Once the migrants boarded the boat, French police stopped trying to stop them from leaving, the BBC reported.
