CAMPAIGNERS slammed the government for “sacrificing refugees and migrants at the altar of Tory failure” after one person died in a boat carrying dozens across the Channel today.
The French coastguard was alerted to a boat carrying 66 passengers at 12.30am local time.
By the time a rescue ship arrived to the scene, around five miles off the coast of Grand-Fort-Philippe, one of the boat’s tubes was deflated and people were struggling in the water.
One person was pronounced dead on board, while another was taken to hospital in Calais by helicopter in a critical condition.
The perilous journey took place as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attempts to push his flagship Rwanda Bill through Parliament, as part of his pledge to “stop the boats.”
Under the Bill, which passed its first vote in the Commons on Tuesday, asylum-seekers who arrive by small boat could face deportation to Rwanda.
However Maddie Harris, founder of the Humans for Rights Network, which documents violations against asylum-seekers, argues that all policies such as Rwanda do is “create additional desperation.”
She linked it to people being spurred to make the journey on the grounds that if they get there quickly maybe they will avoid being sent to Rwanda.
Ms Harris said that the government showed “no acknowledgment” that the UN Refugee Convention permits the right to seek asylum.
“They are obsessed with this idea that the UK is not connected to the rest of the world,” she said.
Natasha Tsangarides, associate director of advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said the death, which comes just days after a man died by suspected suicide on board the asylum barge Bibby Stockholm, was “devastating.”
She said: “The people coming to the UK seeking sanctuary are men, women and children fleeing desperate horrors, and they deserve so much better.
“We know from the survivors of torture we work with every day that for as long as war and persecution persist, frightened people will continue to make the desperate decision to risk their lives in the Channel to reach safety.
“The government must urgently move away from cruel and punitive polices otherwise tragedies like this will continue to happen.”
Care4Calais senior operations manager Imogen Hardman said: “We are a country that can offer safety to people.
“We did it very well when Ukrainians were having to escape the war.”
She concluded that if the government was to offer a humanitarian visa approach, as Ukrainians were offered, and safe routes “there’d be no more people risking their lives crossing the Channel.
“And we wouldn’t have to have people living in Calais in the degrading and inhumane conditions that they live in here.”
Stand Up to Racism national secretary Weyman Bennett called for the government to “stop these needless deaths.”
He said: “Refugee and migrants have been sacrificed on the altar of Tory failure.
“The Tory strategy of using racism as a tool to divide people is that the heart of this policy and this costs real lives.
“It is a monstrous cover-up after destroying elements of the NHS, wrecking our schools, and handing over billions to their mates.
“Solidarity is the only weapon that we can use to defend ourselves and also to stand with those people escaping war and torture.
“Many of these wars were started by our own government,” he added.
Fizza Qureshi, CEO of the Migrants’ Rights Network, called for the government to recognise “the only way to save lives is by dismantling racist and militarised borders.”
She said: “This government is fixated on deterring people from crossing in small boats but refuses to offer safe routes to those from the global South and majority Muslim countries.”
Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon said that the tragedy was “avoidable.”
He said: “These appalling deaths are becoming too common and there is an urgent need to put in place safe routes so people don’t have to take dangerous journeys across the world’s busiest shipping lane.
“Instead, the government is pushing ahead with its unworkable and unprincipled Rwanda plan as well as shutting down existing safe ways to get to the UK.”
Mr Solomon said that the Refugee Council is “ready to work with the government” to create “a fair and humane asylum system.”
Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds accused the government of having “set all its efforts to simply increasing the suffering of people.
“Governments must stop threatening people for seeking asylum from war and persecution, and stop punishing them for the traumas and exploitation they must endure to seek safety,” he said.
French authorities confirmed two people had died in a similar incident off the coast of France in the last month.
In August, at least six people died after a boat sank in the Channel.
