Boat survivor calls for compassion & Priti’s resignation
A SYRIAN refugee who won a BAFTA for filming his perilous journey to the UK via dinghy has called for Priti Patel’s resignation after the deaths of 27 migrants in the English Channel this week.
English teacher Hassan Akkad and 65 other refugees paid Turkish smugglers £60,000 to get them from Izmir, on the country’s Aegean coast, to Greece in 2015.
But their flimsy boat began to sink under the weight of too many people, and Hassan jumped overboard to stop it from capsizing.
Eventually, the Turkish coastguards plucked the helpless passengers from the water and returned them to Turkey.
Among the group were two university professors, an electrical engineer, a belly dancer, eight or nine children and a pregnant woman, who Hassan later learned had lost her baby after the group almost drowned.
Hassan, 38, eventually made it to the UK on a fake passport after an 87-day journey, and is now living in Hackney, East London.
He says his own experience is the reason he knows the Government’s current approach to the
This is not the way to treat people fleeing for
their lives
influx of migrants wishing to risk their lives crossing the Channel simply will not work.
He told the Sunday People: “The Government’s focus is on how to deter people from coming in the first place.
“Britain doesn’t have a functional system where people can claim asylum before risking their lives to get here. It’s a policy of deterrence, not a policy of compassion.
“They are trying to remove the pull factors – or send refugees back to France or the country they arrived in Britain from.
“This is not the way to treat the most vulnerable people in society – people who are fleeing for their lives.
“What we need is open safe passage, and regular routes for people to claim asylum. But sending people back is not going to solve anything. “This is about addressing longterm pull factors, smashing the criminal gangs that treat human beings as cargo and tackling supply chains. Priti should definitely step down. It’s a tough position, but if you are in charge of a big humanitarian issue and you lack compassion, then I don’t think she is the right person to take charge.”
Hassan’s incredible journey is detailed in his book
called Hope Not Fear.
FILMMAKER: Campaigner Hassan