Latest news with #CranstonInquiry
The Independent
27-03-2025
- The Independent
Families call for help to find loved ones after deadly 2021 Channel crossing
The brother of a Kurdish teenager still missing after the deadliest Channel crossing on record is calling for information 'as a human duty' to help the families searching for their loved ones. Zana Mamand Mohammed hopes the Cranston Inquiry into the tragedy will provide more answers over three missing Kurdish men as the month-long evidence sessions come to a close on Thursday. An independent probe, led by Sir Ross Cranston, has vowed to find out the truth of what happened when at least 27 people died as an inflatable boat capsized while attempting the journey to the UK on November 24 2021. Mr Mamand Mohammed told the PA news agency: 'We are searching for our loved ones, and we will do so in the future. 'If anybody has seen anything, or anyone has any information, we are ready to hear anything. 'For any news, we are ready.' The government worker, speaking through an interpreter, called on 'a human duty of anyone' to help them in their search for the missing, whether they are dead or alive, including information on where their bodies are. The 36-year-old added: 'Such an incident has not happened in the past with so many missing in the Channel. 'We are not familiar with the law and procedures here in this country. 'That's why we asked everyone, and that's why we are waiting for the result of the inquiry to see whether we get any information.' His brother Twana Mamand Mohammed was 18 when he left Kurdistan and is listed among four missing people from the incident that night. Mr Mamand Mohammed had given an account to the inquiry of his close relationship with his younger brother, who wanted to become a football player or a Taekwondo practitioner, which he had a black belt in. 'I was excited for what Twana was going to do with his life, because he was such a motivated and energetic young person, I felt protective over him as his older brother, and I wanted him to have the best life possible,' he told the inquiry. Mr Mamand Mohammed recalled feeling very anxious when his brother told him of his plans to leave Kurdistan, and made him promise to stay in contact with him every step of the journey. Initially on November 24 2021, he was told the boat had crossed safely and a GPS tracker placed it in the UK, prompting him and his mother to celebrate together with some food. But the following days were 'extremely difficult' when there was no certainty about those on the boat, prompting Mr Mamand Mohammed to set up a WhatsApp group with other families missing their loved ones. 'We all miss him every day, and we continue to struggle with a slight hope that he might still be alive somewhere, because his body has not been found,' he said. 'It's been three years since the incident, and I carry around this anxiety with me every day, I do not rationally have hope that he's still alive somewhere, but it plays on my mind and it wears me down. 'I feel that I need to see his body back in Kurdistan in order to start the process of recovery. 'I desperately wish there was a way of finding Twana's body. 'This would at least bring some peace to my mother, my father, my siblings and myself after this tragedy.' The inquiry also heard evidence from families of Kurdish men Zanyar Mustafa Mina, 20, and Pshtiwan Rasul Farkha Hussein who are also missing. The families are being represented by solicitors Duncan Lewis throughout the inquiry. Rasul Farkha Hussein said he hopes the inquiry will find his son Pshtiwan, and that he is certain he is alive somewhere. 'He was in cold water surrounded by dead people for so long it may be the case that he has lost his mind and does not know that he should call his parents,' he said. 'If someone finds him and he contacts us, our lives would be saved and filled with joy.' The inquiry had heard how the boat left the French coast shortly after 10pm and around three hours into the journey it became 'swamped'. The inquiry's counsel, Rory Phillips KC, detailed multiple distress calls made from the boat to authorities, but the incident was mistakenly marked as resolved and 'no-one came to their rescue'. Several calls were made by 16-year-old Kurdish boy Mubin Rizghar Hussein, who was known to have died that night alongside his mother and two sisters. Mr Phillips had said one of the important questions raised from that night is how passengers were left in the water more than 12 hours after distress calls were made to the UK authorities. One of the victims was believed to have died just half an hour before rescue. Previously giving evidence to the inquiry, the Home Office's former director of Clandestine Channel Threat Command, Dan O'Mahoney, said that a key part of aerial surveillance in the Channel, which can operate in adverse weather conditions, was not in place at the time of the incident, but that it is today. 'I think it's fair to say if these circumstances that happened on the night of November 23 happened again today, one could provide a fairly high level of assurance that the outcome would have been different,' he said. Closing statements are expected on Thursday from Duncan Lewis solicitors, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Home Office and the Department for Transport. Sir Ross expects the inquiry to conclude and report to the Transport Secretary in 2025.
The Independent
26-03-2025
- The Independent
We won't rest until we know what happened, father tells Channel tragedy inquiry
The family of a man who is among those missing from the deadliest Channel crossing on record 'will not rest' until they know what happened to him, an inquiry has heard. Zanyar Mustafa Mina was 20 when he left Kurdistan, with the last message to his family on November 23 2021 saying 'I'm leaving now'. An independent probe, led by Sir Ross Cranston, has vowed to find out the truth of what happened when at least 27 people died as an inflatable boat capsized while attempting the journey to the UK on November 24 2021. The inquiry had heard that 26 people were identified among the dead, with four people missing and another person whose body was found, but whose identity has not been confirmed. It cannot be certain how many people were on board the boat that night, but the French authorities believe there were 33 people, including 13 women and eight children, the inquiry had heard. Mr Mustafa Mina was classed as missing, and was described to the Cranston Inquiry as energetic, smart and 'always wanted to help people'. His father Mustafa Mina Nabi told the Cranston Inquiry in an audio account that not knowing what happened to him is 'awful'. He said: 'No one has found his body, which makes it even worse. 'I am very upset, but no one has told us what they are doing to locate those still missing. In three years, we have been given no information. 'I want to come to France and England to look for my son. Sometimes I still believe he could be in a hospital or prison somewhere. 'Not knowing is the worst part, and my family and I hope that the inquiry will investigate properly what happened to those still missing. 'We will not rest until we know what happened to Zanyar.' The inquiry is set to hear 27 accounts from family in the last two days of hearings. The father of Afrasia Ahmed Mohamed said when his body was returned to the family in Iraq he cried so much it affected his vision. 'My family had to help me find the bathroom because I could not see,' Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed said. He described life as 'very difficult' in Iraq and said his son left in October 2021, before the family were contacted to send DNA samples to France which confirmed he was dead. 'We have suffered a terrible loss, and we've suffered more in the three years since the incident, when it felt like the UK and French authorities were not taking action,' he said. Abdullahi Mohamud Hassan, the brother of Halima Mohammed Shikh, from Somalia, also told the inquiry the mother-of-three left the country in 2019 because of political instability and violence. He said he only received a picture of her face in the morgue around December 14 2021, adding: 'I find it so painful thinking about what happened to her.' 'Halima's children continue to suffer the loss of their mother, but we are doing everything we can as a family to support them and give them the love they need,' he said of her family and children still in Somalia. Her cousin, Ali Areef, who is a Norwegian national, told the inquiry that he met her in Paris weeks before the tragedy and that she seemed 'very low and worried all the time'. He described contacting Somalian survivor Issa Mohamed Omar, who told him he was with Ms Mohammed Sikh until she died, and that he heard her shouting her last words 'help me, I don't want to die' after the boat capsized. In an account to the inquiry, he said: 'I will never take a ferry across the Channel again or go to Paris. 'This tragic incident is never far away from my mind, and it makes me feel sick to think about crossing the Channel in a ferry where others, including a member of my family, lost their lives because there was no other way to cross.' Meanwhile, the father of Mohammed Hussein Mohammedie said he received his son's body back in Kurdistan on his 20th birthday. Hussein Mohammedie said: 'Mohammed was often complaining that I had not been brave enough to leave Iraq. He wanted to be different. He wanted to be brave.' The last time they spoke was on the evening of November 23 2021, before he got on the boat and the whole family gathered around the phone to hear from him. His death was confirmed after he sent a photo to a Kurdish journalist who went to see the bodies after the news of the incident broke. He also spoke to a Kurdish survivor of the wreckage who described people in the water taking off their life jackets because of the cold and pain, saying 'they wanted to sink and die'. 'But not my son. He wanted to live,' his father said. 'I was told by the survivor that my son was the last one alive before they rescued the survivor. He told me that if they had rescued them half an hour sooner that my son would be alive. 'It has affected us in a way that we will never forget. 'If what the survivor told me is right, had the coastguard arrived 30 minutes earlier, my son would have lived, this I cannot bear and can never forgive.' The evidence continues.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Yahoo
We won't rest until we know what happened, father tells Channel tragedy inquiry
The family of a man who is among those missing from the deadliest Channel crossing on record 'will not rest' until they know what happened to him, an inquiry has heard. Zanyar Mustafa Mina was 20 when he left Kurdistan, with the last message to his family on November 23 2021 saying 'I'm leaving now'. An independent probe, led by Sir Ross Cranston, has vowed to find out the truth of what happened when at least 27 people died as an inflatable boat capsized while attempting the journey to the UK on November 24 2021. The inquiry had heard that 26 people were identified among the dead, with four people missing and another person whose body was found, but whose identity has not been confirmed. It cannot be certain how many people were on board the boat that night, but the French authorities believe there were 33 people, including 13 women and eight children, the inquiry had heard. Mr Mustafa Mina was classed as missing, and was described to the Cranston Inquiry as energetic, smart and 'always wanted to help people'. His father told the Cranston Inquiry in an audio account that not knowing what happened to him is 'awful'. He said: 'No one has found his body, which makes it even worse. 'I am very upset, but no one has told us what they are doing to locate those still missing. In three years, we have been given no information. 'I want to come to France and England to look for my son. Sometimes I still believe he could be in a hospital or prison somewhere. 'Not knowing is the worst part, and my family and I hope that the inquiry will investigate properly what happened to those still missing. 'We will not rest until we know what happened to Zanyar.' The inquiry is set to hear 27 accounts from family in the last two days of hearings. The father of Afrasia Ahmed Mohamed said when his body was returned to the family in Iraq he cried so much it affected his vision. 'My family had to help me find the bathroom because I could not see,' he said. He described life as 'very difficult' in Iraq and said his son left in October 2021, before the family were contacted to send DNA samples to France which confirmed he was dead. 'We have suffered a terrible loss, and we've suffered more in the three years since the incident, when it felt like the UK and French authorities were not taking action,' he said. The brother of Halima Mohammed Shikh, from Somalia, also told the inquiry the mother-of-three left the country in 2019 because of political instability and violence. He said he only received a picture of her face in the morgue around December 14 2021, adding: 'I find it so painful thinking about what happened to her.' 'Halima's children continue to suffer the loss of their mother, but we are doing everything we can as a family to support them and give them the love they need,' he said of her family and children still in Somalia. Her cousin, who is a Norwegian national, told the inquiry that he met her in Paris weeks before the tragedy and that she seemed 'very low and worried all the time'. He described contacting Somalian survivor Issa Mohamed Omar, who told him he was with Ms Mohammed Sikh until she died, and that he heard her shouting her last words 'help me, I don't want to die' after the boat capsized. In an account to the inquiry, he said: 'I will never take a ferry across the Channel again or go to Paris. 'This tragic incident is never far away from my mind, and it makes me feel sick to think about crossing the Channel in a ferry where others, including a member of my family, lost their lives because there was no other way to cross.' Meanwhile, the father of Mohammed Hussein Mohammedie said he received his son's body back in Kurdistan on his 20th birthday. He said: 'Mohammed was often complaining that I had not been brave enough to leave Iraq. He wanted to be different. He wanted to be brave.' The last time they spoke was on the evening of November 23 2021, before he got on the boat and the whole family gathered around the phone to hear from him. His death was confirmed after he sent a photo to a Kurdish journalist who went to see the bodies after the news of the incident broke. He also spoke to a Kurdish survivor of the wreckage who described people in the water taking off their life jackets because of the cold and pain, saying 'they wanted to sink and die'. 'But not my son. He wanted to live,' his father said. 'I was told by the survivor that my son was the last one alive before they rescued the survivor. He told me that if they had rescued them half an hour sooner that my son would be alive. 'It has affected us in a way that we will never forget. 'If what the survivor told me is right, had the coastguard arrived 30 minutes earlier, my son would have lived, this I cannot bear and can never forgive.' The evidence continues.
Sky News
05-03-2025
- Sky News
Cranston Inquiry: Coastguard official recalls taking 'distressing' calls during Channel's deadliest small boat sinking
Why you can trust Sky News A Coastguard official broke down as he described taking a "distressing" phone call during the Channel's deadliest migrant boat sinking. Search and Rescue coordinator Neal Gibson was questioned at the Cranston Inquiry, which is examining the events surrounding the small boat sinking on 24 November 2021. A total of 31 people are thought to have died, with 27 bodies identified, one still unidentified, and four people missing and presumed dead. Mr Gibson took several calls from panicking passengers, including 16-year-old Mubin Rizghar Hussein, as the boat started to take on water. In transcripts shown to the inquiry, Mr Gibson repeatedly assured Mubin a rescue boat was on its way and would take "less than half an hour". In reality, it took double that and never found the sinking vessel. Mr Gibson also told Mubin to stop calling. He said: "You need to stop making calls, because every time you do, we think there's another boat out there, and we don't want to accidentally go chasing for another boat when it's your boat we're looking for." 5:43 Asked why he'd given that instruction, Mr Gibson became emotional, telling the inquiry: "If you don't understand what's fully going on and you're getting 'we're all going to die', it's quite a distressing situation to find yourself in. "Sitting at the end of a phone, effectively helpless. You know where they are and you want to get a boat to them, but you can't." Mubin was among those who died. The inquiry said it can't be certain how many people were on board and there may have been more victims whose whereabouts will never be known. 0:33 The inquiry previously heard Border Force cutter boat Valiant was tasked to respond shortly after 1.30am but it did not leave until 2.22am and took another hour to get to the last location known for the boat, referred to as incident "Charlie". The Valiant did not find "Charlie" in its last known location, and instead found a completely different boat 10 minutes later, which it mistakenly believed to be "Charlie". At that point, the search and rescue operation was stood down. "No-one in the UK was looking for 'Charlie', no-one came to their rescue," said Rory Philips KC, the inquiry's counsel. The inquiry is set to examine a number of potential issues with the response, ranging from chronic under-staffing at HM Coastguard, to Valiant's long response time. The oral hearings are scheduled to last until 27 March.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Woke charities undermine Britain's borders
Eight hundred million. That's the number of people worldwide with a potential claim to asylum in Western countries, once you include the 120 million who have been forcibly displaced, existing refugees, those in modern slavery and the millions who, as per the Refugee Convention, have a 'well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion'. Our system is struggling to cope with an annual inflow of 100,000. The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank believes the cost of housing and supporting the average asylum-seeker has reached £41,000 per person per year. The majority of these would-be refugees now cross the Channel in flimsy, crammed dinghies. On the night of November 23 2021, one of these vessels capsized. Tragically, 27 drowned. As this was the deadliest day on record, and because our gutless politicians love to kick a can down the road, an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding these fatalities was announced in 2023. This followed the publication of a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, which itself recognised that the 'operational picture' in the Channel had changed significantly since the tragedy. So why was the Cranston Inquiry, which launched this week, ever signed off? Already, the British taxpayer has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on this exercise. In 2023-24 alone, it cost us £500,000. Yet it's almost guaranteed to tell us nothing we don't already know, while adding to the pressure for liberalisation of our asylum arrangements, and quite likely for compensation to survivors and relatives. The calls for more money to patrol our waters will grow shriller – even though by mid-2022 the Ministry of Defence was putting the cost at £34,000 a day (which sounds like an underestimate). That's nearly £12.5 million a year before inflation, on top of the £470 million we are paying the French over three years to supposedly try to control migration. If we must have an inquiry, let it add the role played by taxpayer-funded refugee organisations to its terms of reference. Let it scrutinise the charities which oppose government efforts to clamp down on illegal migration and lobby for measures which are tantamount to open borders, and do so on the public purse. Responding to deaths in the Channel, the Refugee Council published a briefing paper recommending we open up more safe and legal routes. The charity received more than £10 million from the government in 2023-24, has over 300 staff, lists among its achievements 'successfully challenging' the state's efforts to identify the age of young people seeking asylum, and boasts of its role as 'a leading voice' opposed to the Rwanda scheme. Then there's Refugee Action, which receives more thasn £5 million in government contracts. It 'helps overturn asylum rulings by providing expert legal advice' while campaigning for 'policy changes to improve the asylum system overall'. This indirectly encourages migrants to risk their lives and those of their children – something which is rarely acknowledged. Opening up legal routes, as these organisations endlessly demand, only eliminates the boats if everyone who applies is admitted. Otherwise, there's still an incentive to make the crossing. It's a view people are free to argue, but not one the taxpayer should be funding these pressure groups to advance, given the obvious risks associated with allowing migrants into the country at levels we cannot conceivably integrate. Issa Mohamed Omar was one of the survivors on November 24 2021. His testimony to the Cranston Inquiry this week was harrowing. But one line stood out. 'The smugglers told us that we would be accepted as asylum seekers once we entered British waters,' he said. 'This was always my understanding and intention'. So long as this is the understanding and the intention, people will choose to journey from the safety of Northern France. Indeed, over 600 people crossed the Channel on Monday, the highest number so far this year. For all Keir's tough talk of smashing gangs, there are only two ways to 'stop the boats': make clear that people who gamble with their lives won't gain from it, or else let everyone in. When the EU came to an agreement with Turkey in 2016 that irregular migrants travelling to Greece would be immediately returned, Aegean crossings fell from over 800,000 in 2015 to less than 50,000 in 2017. Deterrence works. There's no need for an open borders experiment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
