Surrounded by bodies in the unforgiving waters of the English Channel, Issa Mohamed Omar made the agonising decision to let go of the wreck of the small boat he had been clinging to and make a break for a ship he could see in the distance.
Having shed the heavy coat and boots that were weighing him down, the Somali national, who had fled war in Yemen, bravely loosened his grip. “I remember thinking: ‘I am going to die, I don’t want to die here. At least if I die whilst swimming I won’t feel it’,” he told an inquiry into the tragedy.
He swam for more than six hours, taking breaks by lying on his back, before a French woman on a fishing boat spotted him and plucked him from the water.
He was one of the lucky ones. At least 27 other people died when the overcrowded small boat they were on sank in the early hours of 24 November 2021, in the worst maritime disaster in the Channel on record, with four other people missing and presumed dead.
An inquiry into the incident concluded on Thursday that the lives of possibly all the passengers could have been saved if the French coastguard had responded to a distress call. Sir Ross Cranston, who led the inquiry, found that failings by both the UK and France contributed to the scale of the deaths.
He found that deaths were caused by the people smugglers who provided the unsafe vessel for the crossing, as well as the French maritime authorities who failed to respond to the mayday call. The UK coastguard search and rescue operation was also called off too early.
In heartbreaking testimony to the inquiry, Omar recalled his desperate efforts to stay alive after the boat capsized at around 3.20am, holding on to the wreck of the doomed craft until sunrise.
“It was extremely dark, and many people were screaming or crying in the water. I cannot recall being able to see very much, but I think several people drowned or drifted away very quickly after we capsized, as they did not make it back to the boat to hold on,” he told the inquiry.
The majority of the 24 men, seven women and two children on the boat were from the Kurdistan region of Iraq. There were also Somalis, Ethiopians, Afghans, Egyptians, one Iranian and one person believed to be Vietnamese.
Omar recalled how the waves “were strong, and they kept dislodging my hold”, explaining: “I remember thinking each time this happened that I needed to make sure I got straight back to the boat to hold on or I would drown.”
When the sun came up, around 15 people were still holding on to the boat. “Those who were alive were half-dead. There was nothing we could do any more. I could see bodies floating around us in the water,” he said.
He made a choice to release his grip of the wreck and try to swim to safety. He described the decision, saying: “I started swimming towards a ship in the distance and away from the bodies in the water. It must have been very far away. I remember thinking: ‘I am going to die, I don’t want to die here. At least if I die whilst swimming I won’t feel it’.”
He got some respite by floating on his back and estimated that he swam this way for six or more hours after the sun came up. He was finally rescued after around 10 hours in the water by a French woman on a fishing boat with her family. She jumped into the Channel to rescue Omar, bringing him on board her boat.
Among those killed in the tragedy were Maryam Noori Mohammedameen, a young girl in her twenties who wanted to study engineering. Originally from Kurdistan, she had planned to travel to the UK to join her fiance.
Her father, Noori Mohammedameen Hassan, told the inquiry that his daughter was “incredibly kind and used to take care of everyone”. She had hidden her plans to cross the Channel on a small boat from her parents, but they became worried she would make the risky journey in the days before the tragedy.
Hassan said that hearing Maryam named as a victim on the news was “the darkest moment of my life, and the saddest day of all our lives”. He added: “I consider both the UK and France responsible for what happened. They were called, but no one went to help my daughter and those in the boat with her”.
Another victim, Bilind Shakir Baker, from Iraqi Kurdistan, was described as “a very quiet and kind child” in testimony to the inquiry. His father, Shakir Baker Brindar Zewski, said that Bilind loved to swim: “There is a river that goes through Zakho, and a famous bridge that crosses it. Bilind would go there every day to swim with his friends during summer, and spent as much time in the water as possible.”
His father said that when he heard there were two survivors from the wreck, “I was initially telling myself that Bilind would be one of them ... sadly, this was not his fate”.
He added: “It is hard to describe the impact of this tragedy on our family; it has affected us a lot emotionally and mentally.”
Freweyni Hayiemariam Gitet, the mother of victim Niyat Ferede from Ethiopia, said that losing her daughter was “deeply traumatic for me and my family”.
Niyat was the third of her four children and her only girl. Speaking about why her daughter decided to seek a better life, Gitet said: “Niyat would never have left Mekelle if the war had not started. She was excited about her studies and about becoming a pharmacist. She wanted to set up her own pharmacy in Mekelle. She did not show any interest in going to Addis Ababa before the war started. We lost her because of this war. She tried to escape so that she could survive.”
She was described as a “truly exceptional person” and “deeply spiritual”.
Maria Thomas, lead solicitor acting for the families, from the law firm Duncan Lewis, said the inquiry had “laid bare ... the systemic failure to challenge the assumption that callers routinely exaggerate distress, an assumption that created a real risk that those facing genuine emergencies would not be believed”.
Inquiry into deadliest Channel crossing on record found deaths ‘avoidable’
Deadliest Channel small boat disaster that claimed 30 lives ‘could have been avoided’
Inquiry told of victims’ last moments in fatal Stonehaven train crash
Suggestion I applied pressure to prematurely open hospital ‘untrue’ – Sturgeon
Martin Lewis urges savers to claim ‘never seen before’ bank switching offers
Weak climate targets mean UK banks risk missing out on Africa’s renewables boom
