| Re:Uff, das ist so hart zu lesen… |  |
>Ich hatte jedenfalls nicht damit gerechnet, dass die Menschen beim Übersetzen von Frankreich nach England umgekommen sind.
Wann und warum hast du nicht damit gerechnet?
>Vermeidbarer und unverständlicher Leichtsinn, es bestand sicher keine lebensgefährliche Notlage mehr beim Verbleib auf dem Festland.
Die Familie saß in einem Camp in Dunkerque fest und hatte, wie viele iranische Kurden, aufgrund der Erfolgsaussichten bei ihrem Asylantrag Großbritannien als finales Ziel ihrer Flucht. Viele sind aus Kostengründen gezwungen den Ärmelkanal per Boot zu überwinden (die Familie war offenbar bestohlen worden und hatte nicht mehr genug Geld, um per LKW geschmuggelt zu werden):
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53734793]
Im Detail:
Sardasht, in west Azerbaijan province close to the border with Iraq, is a difficult place to realise any ambition beyond sheer survival. With little significant industry, it has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and holds few prospects for its predominantly ethnic Kurdish population. Many are forced to resort to smuggling goods over the border into Iraqi Kurdistan. (…)
In the past few years, hundreds of them have been shot dead or injured by Iranian border guards. Many have fallen to their deaths from the rough mountainous terrain or been buried by avalanches in winter. The region is also heavily militarised. Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, there has been conflict between Iranian security forces and armed Kurdish groups fighting for their rights. Iran labels them separatists backed by foreign powers. (…)
There was a brutal crackdown from the authorities during and in the aftermath of anti-government protests in Iran last year, which exploded in the predominantly Kurdish towns on the western border with Iraq, as well as on the outskirts of Iran's major cities. A friend of Shiva's told the BBC that Rasoul, 35, wanted to escape persecution.
She says that Shiva sold everything they had and borrowed money from friends and family to pay smugglers to take them to Europe. They wanted to get to the UK, which is a popular choice for Kurdish asylum seekers. They believe the UK takes a relatively small number of refugees, compared with other European countries, so they will have better prospects there. (…)
But somewhere along their journey in France disaster had struck. Shiva and Rasoul were robbed of their possessions. In texts Shiva sent on 24 October to a friend in Calais, she acknowledges the journey by boat will be hazardous, but says they don't have the money for a lorry trip. "I know it's dangerous but we have no choice," she texts. (…)
A friend of Rasoul's who travelled with the family to France says that on the evening of 26 October the smuggler in Dunkirk said it was time to make the crossing the next day. They left in the early morning from a beach called Loon Plage, a desolate spot next to an oil depot.
The weather was extremely rough, with gusts of wind up to 30km per hour and waves about 1.5m high. The friend, who calls himself Aware, decided it wasn't worth the risk. "I was scared, I refused to go," says Aware. "I begged Rasoul that he shouldn't go either. But he said he had no choice." Rasoul paid the smugglers around £5,500, according to relatives in Iran.
Ebrahim Mohammadpour, a 47-year-old actor and documentary filmmaker from Sardasht, who was also on the boat with his brother Mohammad, 27, and his 17-year-old son, says the craft was only 4-4.5 metres long and designed for eight people, not the 23 that were crammed on to it.
"Honestly we were totally blind because we had already suffered so much in this journey," says Ebrahim. "First you think, 'I don't want to get on the boat,' but then you say, 'I will board just to leave this misery."
Yasin, a 16-year-old who was also on the boat, says only he and two others - no-one in Rasoul's family - were wearing life jackets. The 22 passengers were all Kurds from Sardasht, and the pilot was a refugee from northern Iran, they say.
Iranian migrants who have previously made the journey to the UK tell me smugglers usually ask the passenger who has the least money to drive the boat.
Shiva and the children went into the glass-partitioned cabin, which would have seemed warmer and safer. But it turned out to be deadly.
After around eight kilometres, the boat filled with water, according to Ebrahim.
„We tried to remove the water, but we couldn't. We wanted to return to Calais but we couldn't," he says.
His brother Mohammad says the passengers began to panic, lurching from one side of the vessel to the other, before the boat suddenly capsized.
It's difficult to establish exactly what happened next, as the accounts of survivors are confused. All say that initially at least, Shiva and her children were trapped in the cabin. Ebrahim says that Rasoul dived under the water to try and rescue them, and came up again to cry for help.
Peshraw, a university student, says he tried to break the glass of the cabin with a carpet cutter but was unable to even crack it. He says that he saw baby Artin floating inside.
Shiva's brother Raso told us he heard Rasoul managed to pull Artin out, then went inside for the others. Ebrahim sobs as he recalls the moment he saw Anita floating in the water, and managed to grab her.
"I held the child in the water. I thought she might be alive. With one hand I was holding onto the boat and with another, I was holding the child. I kept shaking her to see if she was alive but there was no response," he says. "I can't forgive myself," he cries.
Rasoul emerged from the boat moaning, and crying out the names of his family, according to Ebrahim's brother Mohammed, and then just let himself be taken by the waves.
A passing sailing boat raised the alarm at 0930 local time, and began to help those in the water, according to the French authorities. The first rescue ship arrived 17 minutes later, they say.
The authorities say that some people were taken out of the water in cardiac arrest, but will not go into details. The survivors we spoke to believe Rasoul, Shiva, Anita and Armin had already died. Fifteen other people were taken to hospital.
Baby Artin is still missing, presumed dead. Yasin says he saw him swept away in the water.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-54892785]