France resists British offer of plane to spot refugees’ boats on coast
Better surveillance and tracking is needed to stop migrants from entering the water, say UK officials
FRANCE is resisting a British offer of an aerial surveillance plane to help stop migrants setting sail from its beaches as senior government officials from both countries held talks yesterday to prevent a repeat of this week’s deaths at sea.
The French are understood to be concerned about allowing a plane under British command to operate in its airspace although it has accepted British drones to help aerial surveillance of up to 90 miles of beaches in northern France.
Dan O’mahoney, the UK’S clandestine Channel threat commander, met Ann Cornet, the préfet in charge of the region, yesterday to discuss how to improve tracking and intelligence on the traffickers and hundreds of migrants camped around Calais and Dunkirk.
It follows the deaths of Rasoul IranNejad and his wife Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and their children Anita, nine, and Armin, six, on an overcrowded migrant boat that sank off Dunkirk on Tuesday. Their son Artin, 15 months, is missing, presumed dead.
Yesterday, relatives of the “extremely kind” Kurdish-iranian family revealed they are facing a bill of more than £90,000 to bring their bodies home.
A government source said the talks were about “stopping them getting into the water. By the point they are in the water, it is much harder. It is about greater sharing and use of intelligence, more patrols, more gendarmes, more aerial surveillance and better planning”.
Mr O’mahoney, a former Royal Marine, told MPS l ast month that increased aerial surveillance was critical. “It would effectively help [the French] to get their officers to the right place at the right time and stop people from leaving the beaches. That would be a step change in our ability,” he said. Britain is also offering a state-of-the-art Tekever AR5 drone that can remain airborne for 20 hours and cover swathes of land and sea with its cameras and radar at speeds of 60mph. It has already helped to capture a gang of traffickers crossing the Channel.
Britain is putting pressure on the French to agree to “disruptive” tactics such as using nets to block propellers of migrant boats so that they can be apprehended and returned to France.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, Tory MPS and Border Force officials believe such tactics, to effectively make the route unviable, are the only way to stop the trafficking. But the French remain opposed over safety concerns and amid fears it would breach maritime laws that put protection of life first.
A cousin of Mr Iran-nejad said the family paid £14,000 to get on the boat, with a further £8,200 due when they arrived in the UK. He issued a “plea for help” to the French government to assist with the cost of returning their bodies.