Saved by the light from their mobile, Iranians trying to reach UK in dinghy
TWO Iranian migrants were rescued from an 8ft rubber dinghy in the English Channel yesterday after the light from their mobile phone was spotted by the captain of a ferry.
Using only flimsy plastic oars, the men miraculously avoided hundreds of vessels during their night crossing of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes without any navigational aids. They were finally picked up a mile off Kent at 3.30am suffering from shock and hypothermia.
The migrants claimed it took eight hours to row the 20-mile stretch of water in foggy conditions to start a new life in Britain.
Rescuers said it was ‘miraculous’ that the pair escaped being crushed or capsized by one of the 500 ships which pass through the Channel every day. Last night investigators were trying to establish whether the pair had genuinely rowed the shipping lane by themselves or had been dropped close to the English coast by smugglers in a larger vessel. Their account comes just a day after the National Crime Agency warned that criminal gangs were sneaking migrants across the Channel in high-speed boats for £100.
The NCA – the UK equivalent of the FBI – also said that criminal networks were now targeting quieter ports such as Hull and Portsmouth, as well as the key hotspot at Kent, in a bid to smuggle migrants into the country. Earlier this month, the EU’s own border agency, Frontex, said there had been a record 1.82 million illegal crossings into the EU last year as desperate migrants try to get into the continent.
The two men picked up in the Channel, one aged in his mid-30s and the other in his 50s, told rescuers that their journey began around 6.30pm GMT from one of Calais’ beaches. The younger man called 999 from his mobile phone at 12.48am when the pair spotted the Kent coast. But he was unable to give his location to the emergency operator because he had no knowledge of the coastline and only spoke broken English. His friend could not speak any English.
Lifeboats were immediately dispatched from Kent and France to search for them, but without success. However, almost three hours later the captain of P&O ferry The Pride of Canterbury spotted a dim light coming from the water. On closer inspection, he saw one of the men holding aloft his mobile phone with the ‘torch mode’ activated.
RNLI Coxswain James Clapham, 37, from Dover lifeboat station, was the skipper of the Severn Class ‘City of London II’ rescue vessel which pulled alongside the migrants. He said the pair were wearing lightweight clothing in temperatures around 6C: ‘The two men were extremely tired and cold and were suffering from the onset of hypothermia. They are incredibly lucky to be alive as they would have crossed two shipping lanes to be in the area where we found them in the dinghy.
‘They were paddling around in circles and completely lost. It was a very unstable craft, the kind of thing you use at the beach. It was pitch black and they were incredibly lucky to be spotted because their dinghy was also black.’
The pair were given medical treatment before being handed over to Kent Police. They are now being processed by the Home Office. A spokesman said: ‘The security of our border is paramount, and we always work with our partners to detect and deter people who attempt to reach the UK illegally.’
‘They are lucky to be alive’