Bride-to-be forced on to doomed boat at gunpoint
RUTHLESS smugglers threatened to shoot migrants – including a bride-to-be – unless they boarded the overcrowded dinghy that went down in the Channel this week, friends said yesterday.
Up to 50 people were supposed to board two boats ahead of the fatal voyage – but one vessel suffered engine trouble, those stuck in camps in France claimed.
Rather than curtail the trip that would have netted them tens of thousands of pounds, the gun-toting gang corralled the migrants into one boat, it was said.
The chilling details emerged as more were named among those feared drowned in Wednesday’s tragedy off the coast of Calais.
The first confirmed dead was 24year-old student Mariam Nouri Dargalayi, who was recently engaged and trying to reach her fiance in Britain.
Known to her family as Baran, she travelled from northern Iraq via Germany to the French coast.
Fiance Karzan Asad, who is said to have British citizenship and is now working as a barber in Bournemouth, said: ‘I am in a very bad state. It is very sad for me, and for everyone.
‘I had continuous contact with my wife and I was tracking her live GPS. After four hours and 18 minutes, from the moment she went into that boat, I think they were in the middle of the sea, then I lost her.
‘She was a happy person. Someone went to see her body in France, so I know it’s her.’
Last night a cousin in Iraq, Krmanj Ezzat, said: ‘Her mother and father are totally devastated. The situation is just awful. She was a woman in the prime of her life. It’s a total tragedy and the whole family are in shock. I understand why so many people are leaving for a better life, but this is not the correct path. It’s the route of death. Please don’t take this route, it’s not worth it.
‘Baran chose a very difficult way to come to Britain and you see what happened to her. Karzan was waiting for her in England. She was learning English, she was very smart.’
Mr Ezzat fears four more family members were also on the boat.
Yesterday, the family of Deniz Ahmed Mohammed, a 27-year-old Kurd, said he left them a final voicemail saying: ‘Just pray for us.’
Childhood friends Harem Pirot and Shakar Ali, from the town of Ranya, northern Iraq, were also among the feared victims.
THEIR friend Sanger Ahmed said: ‘I spoke to them on the phone on the morning they went. They were saying it was only a tiny boat and people smugglers might shoot people if they tried to back out.
‘They suspected the boat was overcrowded with around 50 people on it. I think they could have been forced on the boat.
‘People smugglers are armed and don’t care if the boat is overloaded or if the weather is bad. We have all heard the stories about people being threatened with a gun unless they get on.’
In the squalid camp near Dunkirk, where the doomed migrants waited for their chance to attempt the crossing, numerous sources have told the Daily Mail shocking claims about what happened on
‘The migrants are told they have to cross ... or else they will be shot’
Wednesday lunchtime. Two boats had been set to leave from the Loon-Plage beach, just outside Dunkirk. Sources described how one of the boats had suffered engine problems, yet the greedy smugglers did not want to miss out on their cash windfall.
‘The smugglers told the migrants that the remaining boat was completely new and so it would be strong enough to carry all of them,’ said one source inside the camp.
Another migrant said: ‘It is all about money for them. There are too many people who have too much to lose.’
The overcrowded dinghy, around 30ft long, was so flimsy it was likened to a children’s paddling pool, and appears to have simply crumpled after either taking on water or colliding with a ship.
The Mail told yesterday how migrant Mohammed Aziz, 31, made a frantic phone call to his friend Peshraw Aziz and said: ‘It’s not good, the engine isn’t powerful enough – I don’t know if we’re going to make it.’
Multiple sources in the camp have claimed the boat could have had as many as 50 people on board, and the French authorities are braced for the death toll – currently at 27 – to rise.
Speaking of his friends, Sanger said he has known Harem, thought to be 23, and Shakar, a 27-year-old geology graduate, all his life and they were all neighbours in Ranya, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Sanger said he travelled with Harem and Shakar to Turkey.
His friends made their way to France via Italy while he decided to come via Belarus, and the trio arranged to meet up in France.
Sanger also told of his fears for two other Iraqi Kurds – Hassan, in his late twenties, and Twana Muhammad, 18, a student.
He also believes an Iranian called Sirwan, aged around 25, and a man called Hever, in his 20s and from Ranya, may have died.
The youngest victim is feared to be Riaz Mohammed, 12, who was pictured wearing a life jacket.
Sanger added: ‘I’m not sure if I will get a boat now – if there’s a chance on a lorry I might not take that risk.’
Migrants in the camp told the Mail police controls are so lax that traffickers brazenly launch their human cargo in broad daylight in full view of security officers.
Karl Maquinghen, a French skipper who has been at sea for 21 years, sounded the alarm on Wednesday afternoon when he found bodies floating in the water.
‘Seeing so many dead people right next to us, it was like a horror film,’ he said yesterday. ‘You can’t sleep – as soon as you close your eyes, you see bodies again.
‘We were petrified to even pull up the nets for fear there was one inside. If we had arrived five minutes earlier, we might have been able to save them.’
A relative of Deniz said his family in Ranya feared the worst.
‘He was suffering poverty then spent everything he collected to go to the UK, and this is what happened,’ nephew Darya said. ‘My grandfather hasn’t even eaten until now. It is like a funeral for them.’
A final voicemail from Deniz said: ‘Now we are on the water, Inshalla [God willing] we will arrive safely. Just pray for us.’