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The UK government must urgently restart its resettlement plan after two young children and their parents died while trying to cross the English Channel, said the representative of the UN refugee agency in the UK.
Iranian Kurds Rasul Iran Nezhad and his wife, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and two of their children, Anita, 9, and Armin, 6, drowned on Tuesday while trying to reach Britain by boat. The fate of the family’s third child, Artin, 15 months old, is unknown.
Their deaths have prompted new calls for the UK government to abandon its hard-line approach towards asylum seekers and expand or create safe and legal routes for migrants fleeing torture and death to travel to the UK. and claim protection.
One such route would be the UK’s global resettlement scheme, which facilitates the transfer of recognized refugees from a country of asylum to the UK with the goal of permanent settlement. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) assesses and grants refugee status.
The plan, which is supposed to resettle some 5,000 refugees a year, has been suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
UNHCR UK Representative Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor said: “UNHCR expects resettlement to the UK to resume very soon, once reception capacity is confirmed and the authorities overcome any remaining related logistical problems. with Covid. The pandemic has presented serious new difficulties and uncertainties for refugees.
“The tragic events that occurred in the English Channel this week demonstrate once again the need for concerted international efforts to address the complex root causes of displacement. Reopening and widening legal avenues for more refugees to come to the UK safely is a tangible way that this country can help.
Pagliuchi-Lor’s intervention comes as UNHCR launches a series highlighting the benefits of the UK’s community sponsorship program.
The program, which has been running since 2016, allows community groups to be directly involved in supporting refugee families resettled in the UK through the currently suspended resettlement program.
“Community sponsorship it’s transformative, ”said Pagliuchi-Lor. “It provides refugee families with a support network to help them adapt, learn and become independent more quickly.
“But it also has a real effect on local volunteers, uniting them in a common cause and allowing them, in a small way, to be part of the global solution to forced displacement.”
UNHCR traveled across the UK last year to recount the lives of five refugee families and their community supporters in Wales, Devon, Liverpool, Greater Manchester and London, collecting images and videos for a series illustrating the scheme.
More than 7,400 people have arrived in the UK in small boats this year, according to PA Media’s analysis, almost four times more than in 2019. A record 416 arrived in a single day on 2 September. Seven migrants have died trying to cross the English Channel this year, three more than last year.
UNHCR joins groups like Safe Passage, Amnesty and Choose Love / Help Refugees in calling for safe alternatives to the government’s current approach of physically obstructing crossings.
Other options, such as cross-border family reunion arrangements, are the best way to reduce the number of crossing attempts, the groups said, although the UK government rejected amendments to its immigration bill as recently as last week that they would have secured those rights. Under British law, the family reunion continued after the Brexit transition period.
The Interior Ministry has been contacted for comment.
