LONDON: Arash took his first step in British land on a cloudy and drizzle day in May, after trying the intersection of dangerous channels from North France.
The England border police intercepted Dinghy inflatable where he and the others spent five hours avoiding waves and traffic in one of the busiest shipping lines in the world, and took them ashore.
Arash, 28, who is now looking for asylum in the UK, is one of more than 27,000 people who try a dangerous trip in 2021 a record.
By 2020, only 8,400 individuals crossed the channel on a small ship.
Because the number has surged, so, has death, with 36 years, including 27 who died in a single incident in November.
But Arash, who asked his real name not to use because he was afraid of the persecution of his religious beliefs in Iran, said the risk is commensurate.
“When you have no hope in your country and your life in danger, you will take your chance and you will risk doing this dangerous thing,” said the former student engineering told AFP.
Arash left his home in Southwestern Iran in 2018, making his way to North France via Serbia, Greece and Germany.
On the way, he paid thousands of euros to smugglers and use two fake passports.
For the last leg of his trip, he paid 2,500 euros (£ 2,130, $ 2,817) for places on a crowded ship with 27 others, including two small children.
Most come from Eritrea, Iran and Afghanistan, he said.
– Large delay – British authorities have attracted the relationship between increased arrival with the use of a larger rubber boat, but the rickety boat is still often drambled with passengers.
“Surely it (Dinghy) is overloaded,” Arash said about his own journey.
“We don’t have room to move around the ship.” When they seaed from France, he said he was filled with “feelings that were a mixture of fear and hope”.
The high number of migrants to England from mainland Europe has become a political headache for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his home secretary Pritel.
The 2016 campaign to leave the European Union, where Johnson risked his political career, promised to “take back control” from the British border.
But officials have acknowledged that the number of asylum seekers sent back to the EU have fallen sharply, with England now abandoned from returns between member countries.
The flow of migrants also deteriorated English relations with France, encouraging inappropriate blame games even when both parties tried to disrupt the trafficking network.
The Chief Executive of the Action of Refugees, Tim Naor Hilton, said the British who promised France of £ 54 million ($ 72 million, 64 million euros) to try to stop the ferry “waste money” by trying to tighten his border.
“The year of the ministeric inspection” means that “Whenever there is additional pressure on the system it cannot handle it”, he said.
“Headquarters longer than previously to decide on people’s claims.
This unacceptable delay means refugees remain longer in the asylum system and leave the department struggling to find accommodation.” – Borders Bill – National Government and Borders Bill at this time before Parliament, promised harder actions against human smugglers and, controversial, migrants themselves.
A home office spokesman said the bill would “improve our damaged asylum system, creating a fair but firm immigration system that protects the most vulnerable and cracked on illegal immigration and frequent gangs that facilitate”.
If it passes, the bill will allow the return of asylum seekers such as Arash who has passed what is called “a safe third country”.
Human rights groups fell and almost eight months since his arrival, Arash said he was “hoping better” from life in England.
He was taken to be processed in a squat, the red brick building at the foot of the lime cliff towering above the port of the South Coast Dover, and from there to London.
But he was in a hotel on the outskirts of Heathrow Airport since then, waiting to hear about the decision about the status of its souzles.
Like the number of crossings, statistics show mushrooming in the number of asylum seekers who receive emergency assistance while in “initial accommodation” before getting a flat or shared house elsewhere.
About 2,738 was recorded in December 2019.
In September 2021, the number was 16,794.
“Why are we in the same place, without any plan and it’s more or less like a prison?” Arash asked.
Migrant crossing channels to England more than triple in 2021
