Mohammed appears to be like at me, his eyes moist from tears, and shakes his head gently. Grief is sort of a weight round him, which he meets with pressured smiles and choked-back tears.
“Every day, I think of dying a hundred times,” he says.
Next to him is his spouse, Nour, closely pregnant and sobbing into her palms. She is because of give start in simply a few weeks, however now mourns her daughter simply as she awaits the arrival of a son.
It is lower than per week since Rula drowned in a French canal, and the devastation continues to be desperately etched on their faces.
Nour unlocks her cellphone and calls up a photograph of Rula. She is smiling out from the display.
“She was beautiful and I lost her. My little princess. She was seven years old, she had seen nothing in this world. We just wanted to make their lives better,” she says.
Rula died due to the household’s dream of reaching Britain. They had spent years travelling from Iraq, the place their lives have been threatened, throughout Europe, to Germany after which on to France.
A couple of days in the past, the household boarded a ship in France, intent on reaching Britain. They had paid a individuals smuggler €6,000, and been promised seats aboard the type of vessel used for vacationer journeys – protected and dependable.
Instead, they have been positioned on a death-trap – an overloaded stolen pleasure-boat with no life jackets that capsized on a canal. Rula, who had sought refuge from the noise in a small cabin on the entrance of the boat, was trapped inside.
“The water came into the cabin and she was stuck,” says Mohammed.
“The smugglers had left us. I had to rescue my wife, my son and another person. But I couldn’t rescue her.”
They are too drained to shout or change into livid. But in the event you ask them about blame, then the reply comes again.
“My daughter died and the reason why is because of the people smugglers who have no morals,” he says.
“They fooled us, took money from us and threw us in the water without any mercy. They do not see humans as humans – they only see materials and money.”
Besides them are their three sons – Muhaimen, 14, Hassan, 10, and Moamel, eight. They pay attention and nod alongside quietly.
“She was very dear to us, but what do we do?” says Hassan, after I ask him about his sister.
“I want her to come back but she won’t.” His grief is so thick it bewilders him.
The household invited us to speak to them. They wished the world to learn about their daughter, however in addition they wished to speak about their exasperation with the life they’ve ended up residing – fleeing a house the place they can not keep, however struggling to discover a place the place they will truly settle.
“I do not know what to do or where to go,” Nour says. “What crime have these children committed? What is their future? I need a country to listen to me, just take their papers.”
Mohammed nods and holds his spouse. “When you reach a point when your life is not secure, when your children could get killed, you have no choice but to migrate and go to countries that preach humanity.
“But when you talk to them, tell them your story, they threaten you with deportation. Our children are smart but honestly, sometimes we wonder – why did we bring them into this world?”
I ask if they’d nonetheless wish to go to Britain, regardless of all of the trauma they’ve skilled. The reply is sure. Remarkably, they plan on making an attempt once more.
A message comes by way of. The household has been requested to go to the morgue in Lille.
Mohammed comes out and in, a ball of nervous pressure. Hassan and Moamel play with a paper aeroplane on a patch of garden over the highway from the morgue. They discover a ladybird and agree that Rula would have cherished it.
But then they’re known as again in, they usually see her physique, and once we see the boys subsequent they’re silent however for his or her weeping.
A short time later, Rula’s physique is launched to the household however there may be little time to waste. Muslim custom dictates that the burial should happen earlier than dawn.
When we get to the graveyard, there are dozens of individuals ready – sympathetic strangers who’ve come to supply solace. You can see the household are touched.
At the far finish, underneath the shadow of a tall electrical energy pylon however shaded from the visitors noise, Rula’s coffin is lowered right into a grave.
There is a prayer, a second of reflection, after which the grave is crammed in. Her father and brothers all rub their palms within the soil. A bag is full of the dust and given to Nour. Flowers are positioned over the grave, in addition to pictures of Rula. A marker is put in place, remembering her title. Hassan kisses it.
We say goodbye to the household, and one factor strikes me. If Mohammed, Nour and their kids do finally get to the UK, they won’t be allowed to journey overseas once more for a very long time.
Reaching Britain will imply being reduce off from their daughter’s ultimate resting place, unable to put flowers on Rula’s grave. Like a lot within the story of migration, additionally it is a story of creating horrible selections.
Source: information.sky.com”