Father of girl who died in Channel says family feared being deported to Iraq | Immigration and asylum

The father of a seven-year-old girl crushed to death in a small boat said they tried to cross the English Channel after being told his young family would be deported to Iraq after spending years in Europe.

Ahmed Alhashimi, 41, lost his daughter Sarah’s grip on an inflatable boat after a large group of men rushed aboard as it pulled off the coast of Wimereux, south of Calais.

Sarah was trampled when Alhashimi, who was also traveling with his wife Noor Al Saeed, 13-year-old daughter Rahaf and eight-year-old son Husam, became stuck and could not reach her. Sarah was one of five people who died in the crash last Tuesday.

Speaking to the BBC, Alhashimi, who said he left Basra in Iraq 14 years ago, after being threatened by the militia, he said Sarah was born in Belgium and lived in Sweden, but his numerous asylum applications in EU countries were rejected.

“If I knew there was a 1% chance of keeping the kids in Belgium or France or Sweden or Finland, I would keep them there,” he said. “All I wanted was for my children to go to school. I didn’t want any help. My wife and I can work. I just wanted to protect them, their childhood and their dignity.

It was the family’s fourth attempt to cross the Channel since they arrived in the Pas de Calais area two months earlier.

They had previously been caught by police, but Alhashimi said the smugglers had assured him that for €1,500 (£1,280) per adult and half for each child, they would be among 40 people, mostly Iraqis, who would board the a boat.

Sarah was calm at first, Alhashimi said, holding her father’s hand as they walked from the train station in Vimmereau the night before, then hiding in the dunes north of the city during the night.

Shortly before 6 a.m., the group inflated their boat and the smugglers ordered them to take it to the beach and run out to sea with it.

Suddenly, Alhashimi said, a police canister of tear gas went off near them and Sara started screaming.

Once on the boat, Alhashimi had carried his daughter on his shoulders, but then took her off to help his other daughter, Rahaf, get aboard.

He pleaded with those around him, including a young Sudanese man who was among those who joined the boat at the last minute, to step aside to let him take his youngest child.

“I just wanted him to move so I could pull my baby out,” Alhashimi said. He punched the man, but even that was ignored.

“That time was like death itself,” Alhashimi said. “We saw people die. I saw how those men behaved. They didn’t care who they stepped on – a child or someone’s head, young or old. People started suffocating.”

He added: “I couldn’t protect her. I will never forgive myself. But the sea was the only choice I had.”

It was only later, after French rescuers reached the boat and unloaded some of the 112 on board, that Alhashimi was able to reach his daughter’s body.

He said: “I saw her head in the corner of the boat. It was all blue. She was dead when we got her out. She wasn’t breathing.”

Alhashimi said Belgium recently rejected his asylum application on the grounds that Basra was safe. The family has spent the past seven years living with a friend in Sweden.

Alhashimi said: “Everything that happened was against my will. I ran out of options. People blame me and say “how could I risk my daughters?” But I spent 14 years in Europe and was rejected.