Safe and secure routes now!
Read Amhad’s story about his treacherous journey fleeing the Taliban from Afghanistan to the UK, the inhumanity of people dying on small boats, and why he advocates for a policy of safe routes for others like him seeking international protection.
Care4Calais, a volunteer-run refugee charity working with refugees in the UK, France and Belgium, recently came together with PCS to propose an alternative vision of our asylum system – one which prioritises saving lives and protects the interests of our members in the Border Force.
‘Safe and Secure Routes: Refugee Visa-to-Travel Proposal’ argues for the introduction of a Ukrainian-style visa system that would not only prevent deaths in the Channel but go some way towards destroying smuggling gangs overnight.
PCS recently spoke to a former pilot for the Afghanistan army who was forced to flee his country after the collapse of Kabul to the Taliban.
Ahmad* describes his British and American superiors in the coalition forces in glowing terms: “kind, noble, and dedicated individuals” who showed us “true friendship and stood by us in the fight against terrorist groups”. This made the eventual refusal of the Home Office to grant him refugee status and its threat to send him to Rwanda all the more harrowing.
Hoping to avoid detection by the Taliban after they missed out on evacuations by the coalition forces, Ahmad, his one-year-old daughter and his wife moved from location to location, including a night spent in a garage.
A contact at the Iranian Embassy in Kabul helped them secure three-month visas for Iran, but the Iranian government refused to extend the visa once it expired. To avoid being arrested by the Iranian police, and to keep his family safe, he made the difficult decision to leave them behind and travel illegally to Turkey, where he applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme (meant to help those who had worked with British forces in Afghanistan to relocate to the UK).
After his application was rejected, he felt “completely shocked and disappointed, especially after serving and working so closely with British forces”. When he tried to leave Turkey, he was arrested and placed in a detention camp. But, he remembers with horror in his voice, “this was more of a jail,” with ISIS prisoners downstairs.
His eventual release, aided by a kind solicitor, led him to another huge life decision: get arrested and deported back to a potentially life-threatening situation in Afghanistan or travel on a small boat to Italy. “Tired of it all” and “constantly worried about my family that l had left behind,” he entered a boat built to fit 10 people with about 70 men, women and children, who were crammed together for five days and four nights.
‘Unimaginable horrors’
Unable to claim asylum in Switzerland and Italy, he decided that “the UK would understand my situation better and give me the protection I needed”. Once he arrived in Calais, he saw the atrocious living conditions there for migrants, who were “sleeping under trees, on the streets, exposed to the cold, rain, and hunger”.
On the Iranian and Turkish borders, he had already witnessed “unimaginable horrors”. Smugglers took innocent people hostage, including women and children, and brutally tortured them. Women were raped by smugglers; people were cut and tortured by smugglers, who filmed these scenes and sent the videos to their families, demanding ransom money in exchange for their release.
“They choose these dangerous routes because they have no other choice - it is their last and only option,” he explains. “I don’t believe anyone would willingly take such a terrible journey, leaving behind their homeland and their loved ones, unless they were truly desperate.”
Eventually, Ahmad reached British shores. But only after a treacherous journey across the channel by small boat in freezing cold November weather: “Like many others who lost their lives, I could have easily drowned. But I had no choice - I had to do it.”
After a year of dangerous travel, he was shocked to hear that his claim for refugee status was denied by the Home Office. Indeed, their notice told him he would be sent to Rwanda, as part of the heinous Tory scheme that PCS helped defeat.
With the help of Care4Calais, the Home Office gave him refugee status and granted a resident's permit. Now, he is reunited with his family and “trying to stand on our feet again to rebuild our lives here in the UK”.
Ahmad argues that PCS members and other trade unionists can put pressure on their government to provide safe routes “for those seeking asylum like me”.
“There is no reason why people should die every day trying to make the journey,” he adds. “I’ve met lots of high skilled migrants from different countries. These people are not criminals. They cannot return to their countries and they need help and shelter. Their voices must be heard - they are human beings.”
*Ahmad is a pseudonym to protect his identity.