Migrant who walked length of Chunnel is given asylum
MPs last night condemned a decision to grant asylum to a Sudanese migrant who walked 31 miles through the Channel Tunnel to Britain.
Giving Abdul Rahman Haroun refugee status sent the wrong message to others desperate to enter the country, they said.
Mr Haroun, 40, will now be given statefunded accommodation in a B&B, flat or house and is entitled to a weekly allowance of £36.95. He will also be allowed free NHS healthcare, prescriptions, dental care and eyesight tests.
Damian Collins, the Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, said: ‘ People who break the law should lose the right to asylum.
‘What we want to do is send a message to those people in Calais that if you try and break into our country by hiding in vehicles or trains – or by walking through the Channel Tunnel – you will immediately lose your right to making an asylum claim in this country.
‘This is completely the wrong message to send to other migrants waiting in Calais.’
Haroun was arrested on August 4 – less
‘Completely the wrong message’
than a mile from the tunnel’s exit in Folkestone, Kent.
His perilous journey had taken 11 hours, and he would have been just a few feet from trains travelling at 100mph.
The Sudanese national, who had previously pleaded not guilty to a charge of ‘obstructing an engine or a carriage using a railway’, appeared in court yesterday via a video link from Elmley Prison.
Philip Bennetts, QC, prosecuting, told Canterbury Crown Court in Kent that Haroun had been granted asylum, adding: ‘We would ask for 14 days to consider the impact of that.’
Last night a Eurotunnel spokesman said: ‘Asylum should have been refused because of what this man did.
‘When the police first arrested Mr Haroun we were told that he would face the full force of the law. What he did was incredibly dangerous and could have put the lives of passengers on trains and workers in the tunnel at severe risk.’
WHO could fail to be impressed by the determination of Abdul Haroun, the Sudanese refugee who walked 31 miles through the blackness of the Channel Tunnel – with trains roaring past at 100mph every few minutes – to achieve his dream of asylum in Britain?
Although he was arrested at Folkestone, charges have now been dropped. He has been granted refugee status, will be housed, given benefits and be allowed to work. His dream has come true.
But why on earth should he be claiming asylum in Britain? During his 5,000-mile journey from war-torn Sudan, he must have passed through a string of countries offering a safe haven. If he is a genuine refugee, why didn’t he accept their hospitality?
Like hundreds of thousands of other migrants, Mr Haroun wants to settle here because he knows the welfare system is among the world’s most generous.
The asylum system is on the point of collapse and the Schengen agreement – which allows free movement across the EU – disintegrating. Sweden and Denmark are the latest within the Schengen zone to restore frontier controls in a bid to stem the tide of migrants.
Through bitter experience, they are beginning to see the utter folly of a border-free Europe.