If an Australian or a Canadian can book a flight, why couldn’t Mariam?

24 year old Mariam Nouri, was a student from  Kurdistan recently engaged to Karzan who lives in the U.K. on Wednesday. The plan was reunion.
 

She got on a dinghy at a beach near Dunkirk. Hours later along with 26 others her body was recovered floating in the water.

If she was Australian or French or Canadian she could just book a flight. But she was from the Middle East. Her only option was putting her life into the hands of people smugglers and taking a dangerous journey across the channel in an overcrowded dinghy.

This was not a natural disaster. It was human made policy. And humans can change that policy if they act with humanity. 

On the radio tonight I heard them mention the 27 people who drowned, not “illegal immigrants”. 

Priti Patel had apparently asked the BBC to temper its language. As Home Secretary she can turn the tide if she wants to instead of stoking the fire and sounding dog whistle politics to the far right.

This is happening on YOUR watch. Blocking safe routes to desperate people who have no other option fleeing danger is only going to result in more drownings and proliferation of people smuggling. 

You have the power to change it. 

Robina Qureshi

#channelcrossings