Pictured, tragic Channel migrant
Friend says ‘we lost him so quickly, it was dark’
PICTURED for the first time, this is the migrant who tragically drowned while making his third bid to cross the Channel and reach Britain.
Abdulfatah Hamdallah died after the 3ft dinghy he and a friend were in was punctured by shovels they used as oars.
His friend survived, but Mr Hamdallah, from Sudan, could not swim and his body was found on a beach at Sangatte.
Friends at a makeshift camp he stayed at in Calais have shared images of the former student with the Mail in the hope of highlighting the human cost of the crossings.
They revealed the tragedy unfolded nearly a mile out to sea after the pair set off in a dinghy, which they stole from a shack, about 1am on Wednesday.
Gamr Alsha, 18, said he set off alongside Mr Hamdallah, also known as Wajdi, in a different, more sturdy and bigger boat which was carrying eight people.
But as both vessels got nearly a mile out to sea, Mr Hamdallah’s dinghy burst when he and his friend rotated their makeshift oars backwards. Mr Alsha said: ‘As they put the spade in a motion to sweep the water behind them, the edge of it cut into the dinghy. He tried to clutch on to the boat but he couldn’t make it.
‘We lost him quickly. The water was quite still, but it was dark.
‘We turned our own boat back to the beach to get help but the police and lifeguards could not find him. They used torches but he was gone. Then they found him on the beach [seven hours later] in the morning.
‘Before the boat sank he was happy, saying, “I want to arrive in England”. Wajdi said he had a bad life in Sudan. He tried to reach England by boat two times before. I have tried four times.’
Asked if his friend’s death would deter him from trying to reach Britain, he added: ‘If I found a boat again or had a chance to get to the UK, I would.
‘It’s a bad life in France. It’s my dream to get to the UK. In Sudan there are too many problems.
‘If I was back in Sudan I would be dead by now.’
Friends also told how Mr Hamdallah
fled his home near Darfur in Sudan in 2018 as a result of the civil war there.
He is said to have spent time in a migrant camp in Libya after travelling north through Africa. Mr Hamdallah then made it to Italy last year after crossing the Mediterranean by boat before crossing through the Alps into France.
He spent some months in Paris and Nantes and reached Calais between two and four months ago, friends said.