As we approach the bitter cold winter, conditions in Calais are already deteriorating. Refugees are hungry, cold, wet, living in appalling conditions without sanitation and wearing only the clothes they have travelled in.
It is hard to believe that this is happening less than 30 miles from the UK border.
Innocent people born in the wrong place are desperately continuing to risk their lives and travel across the Channel to find sanctuary here in the UK.
- Katie Clarke
The deaths of 27 people in the Channel earlier this week has brought sharply into focus the terrible risks that people are taking to reach safety in the UK. The desperation behind these decisions must be recognised.
People traffickers are charging families thousands of euros to attempt the dangerous Channel crossing in a small boat. This is criminally wrong, but sadly the numbers of people being trafficked has been higher in 2021 than ever before.
Questions are sometimes asked about why people continue travelling towards the UK when they have already passed through other safe countries. The 1951 Refugee Convention does not require a person to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. People have every right to claim asylum in the UK if they reach it. If someone already has family or friends in the UK, or they have some fluency in English, it is understandable why they might feel the UK is the safest place for them to go.
Most people seeking asylum don't arrive by an approved route, and some may have lost their identity papers en route which complicates things. There are thousands of people waiting for their asylum claim to be considered.
The truth is that desperate people are forced to do desperate things. Our free download, ‘A Refugee’s Story’, wordlessly illustrates just such a dangerous journey, and we want it to reach everyone who has arrived in the UK by whatever means. After the tragic deaths in the Channel, the importance of the story is even more poignant. It has already helped and will continue to help people disclose the trauma they have been through so that the right help can be given.
Please share it with your local refugee charities, welcome centres, schools, mental health services, councillors, and anyone else who might be in contact with people who are recently arrived, frightened and seeking asylum.
Photo by Barth Bailey on Unsplash