More migrants will die crossing the English Channel in small boats unless urgent action is taken, the UK government has been warned.
After six Afghan refugees died, MPs from across the political spectrum joined with campaigners in urging ministers to act to tackle boat crossings.
Some 59 migrants were rescued after the alarm was raised early on Saturday, according to the French police command responsible for the Channel.
Boulogne city deputy public prosecutor Philippe Sabatier said all six fatalities were Afghan men, all believed to be in their 30s.
Aid workers fear the migrants who have been arriving at the French coast are determined to make the crossing to the UK during the relatively calm conditions of the summer months.
The Refugee Council has warned “more people will die” unless more safe routes to the UK are created for them.
Its chief executive Enver Solomon said the incident “underscores the need for meaningful action” to reduce dangerous crossings and urged the Government to focus on creating an “orderly and humane asylum system”.
Steve Smith, chief executive of refugee charity Care4Calais called the deaths “an appalling and preventable tragedy”.
He said those “who died were not just statistics, but individual people: someone's children, someone's siblings, and possibly someone's parents”.
“This terrible loss of life demonstrates yet again the need for a system of safe passage to the UK for refugees.
“This would enable them to apply for asylum while in France and then to travel safely to the UK without risking their lives in small boats. It would put the people smugglers out of business overnight.”
Experts spoke to The National as part of an investigation into the criminal gangs who operate the trade in small boats and said their flimsy construction made more deaths “inevitable”.
Labour shadow cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson called for tough action from the government to deal with criminals to prevent further deaths.
“The events in the Channel are absolutely tragic and heartbreaking and it does demonstrate that we need tougher action to tackle the criminal gangs that are exploiting people and putting them in harm’s way,” she said.
“But under this Government, we’ve seen convictions fall for people smugglers and we’ve seen them running rings around the Government.
“It’s completely wrong that we’ve seen a big reduction in the number of convictions and prosecutions of these people smugglers.”
Conservative backbench MP and ex-party chairman Sir Jake Berry said: “only radical changes can truly turn the tide”.
“We have a moral duty, both to our own citizens and those asylum seekers, to act,” he wrote in the Sunday Express.
Regis Holy, captain of a lifeboat that brought five of the survivors back to Calais, said migrants who had given everything to get this far, would keep risking everything to make the crossing.
“There will be other tragedies. It will never stop,” he said.
Home Office figures show that 755 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Thursday – the highest daily number so far this year – confirming that the total since 2018 has passed 100,000.
Some 343 people in six boats were detected crossing on Friday, taking the provisional total for the year so far to more than 16,000.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
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Engine: Supercharged 6.2-litre V8
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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MORE ON IRAN'S PROXY WARS
PROVISIONAL FIXTURE LIST
Premier League
Wednesday, June 17 (Kick-offs uae times) Aston Villa v Sheffield United 9pm; Manchester City v Arsenal 11pm
Friday, June 19 Norwich v Southampton 9pm; Tottenham v Manchester United 11pm
Saturday, June 20 Watford v Leicester 3.30pm; Brighton v Arsenal 6pm; West Ham v Wolves 8.30pm; Bournemouth v Crystal Palace 10.45pm
Sunday, June 21 Newcastle v Sheffield United 2pm; Aston Villa v Chelsea 7.30pm; Everton v Liverpool 10pm
Monday, June 22 Manchester City v Burnley 11pm (Sky)
Tuesday, June 23 Southampton v Arsenal 9pm; Tottenham v West Ham 11.15pm
Wednesday, June 24 Manchester United v Sheffield United 9pm; Newcastle v Aston Villa 9pm; Norwich v Everton 9pm; Liverpool v Crystal Palace 11.15pm
Thursday, June 25 Burnley v Watford 9pm; Leicester v Brighton 9pm; Chelsea v Manchester City 11.15pm; Wolves v Bournemouth 11.15pm
Sunday June 28 Aston Villa vs Wolves 3pm; Watford vs Southampton 7.30pm
Monday June 29 Crystal Palace vs Burnley 11pm
Tuesday June 30 Brighton vs Manchester United 9pm; Sheffield United vs Tottenham 11.15pm
Wednesday July 1 Bournemouth vs Newcastle 9pm; Everton vs Leicester 9pm; West Ham vs Chelsea 11.15pm
Thursday July 2 Arsenal vs Norwich 9pm; Manchester City vs Liverpool 11.15pm
Veere di Wedding
Dir: Shashanka Ghosh
Starring: Kareena Kapoo-Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania
Verdict: 4 Stars
match info
Southampton 0
Arsenal 2 (Nketiah 20', Willock 87')
Red card: Jack Stephens (Southampton)
Man of the match: Rob Holding (Arsenal)
What is the definition of an SME?
SMEs in the UAE are defined by the number of employees, annual turnover and sector. For example, a “small company” in the services industry has six to 50 employees with a turnover of more than Dh2 million up to Dh20m, while in the manufacturing industry the requirements are 10 to 100 employees with a turnover of more than Dh3m up to Dh50m, according to Dubai SME, an agency of the Department of Economic Development.
A “medium-sized company” can either have staff of 51 to 200 employees or 101 to 250 employees, and a turnover less than or equal to Dh200m or Dh250m, again depending on whether the business is in the trading, manufacturing or services sectors.
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
Profile of RentSher
Started: October 2015 in India, November 2016 in UAE
Founders: Harsh Dhand; Vaibhav and Purvashi Doshi
Based: Bangalore, India and Dubai, UAE
Sector: Online rental marketplace
Size: 40 employees
Investment: $2 million
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
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