“I couldn’t protect her, she suffocated. I will never forgive me,” cries Ahmed Alhashimi. His 7-year-old daughter Sara, born in our country, died this week on the Channel. While the family tried to get to Britain in a rubber boat. But the boat was so full that she suffocated.
Many tragedies have happened in recent years with migrants desperately trying to get to Britain. But the story of little Sara leaves no one untouched. The way she met her end is especially shocking.
Ahmed Alhashimi, her father, beats his chest. From sadness, from anger, but also from guilt and frustration.
“I couldn’t protect her. I will never forgive myself. But the sea was the only choice I had. I only want the best for my family,” he sobs.
A week earlier, before dawn, on the same stretch of French coast south of Calais, the big day had arrived. A few hours of suffering and they would set foot in Great Britain. But in the meantime they are back in France. Without their daughter.
Sudanese
He blames a group of Sudanese for her death.
Although Ahmed and his wife are Iraqi, his daughter had never visited that country. She was born in Belgium and had spent most of her short life in Sweden. But when his family was told they would be deported because their asylum application was refused, fleeing to Britain was their only chance to stay in Europe
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Ahmed’s wife, Nour AlSaeed, and their two other children, 13-year-old Rahaf and 8-year-old Hussam, were also in the boat but were able to breathe and survived. But they were in shock when they saw Sara lying motionless at the bottom of the boat.
“Sara lay at our feet, protected from wind and weather. That’s what we thought. But the weight simply crushed and suffocated her. And we didn’t notice anything. It was dark.”
Fourth attempt
It was already the family’s fourth attempt to make the crossing. Twice, police caught them on the beach struggling to keep up with other migrants as they sprinted toward a smuggler’s boat. Ahmed said the smugglers – who charged 1,500 euros per adult and half that for each child – had promised him that only 40 people, mostly Iraqis, would be on their boat this time, but that they were surprised when a separate group of Sudanese migrants suddenly appeared on the beach and walked to their rubber boat, pushing others aside to join them.
When they were picked up at sea by a French lifeboat, there was no hope for Sara. “She looked completely blue,” says her dad. “The worst part is that people are now blaming me. But I did it for my family. It was trying to get to Britain or being forced onto a plane to Baghdad. We didn’t want that because we wouldn’t be safe there.”
But Ahmed’s family would not have been granted asylum with us or in Sweden because Basra, his birthplace in Iraq, is classified as a safe area. And so there was no reason to stay here.
