"I will ... say very clearly that our security forces are mobilized day and night. Maximum mobilization [of French forces with reservists and drones will be watching the coast]."

"But above all, we need to seriously strengthen cooperation -- with Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and the European Commission."

French President Emmanuel Macron

 

"Yesterday is sad and it is scary [the drowning of 31 migrants attempting to cross the Channel in an overloaded dinghy that deflated], but we have to go by boat, there is no other way."

"Maybe it's dangerous, maybe we die, but maybe it will be safe. We have to try our chance. It's a risk, we already know it is a risk."

Manzar, 28-year-old Kurd from Iran

Fire trucks arrive at Calais harbour Wednesday after at least 31 migrants died in the sinking of their boat off the coast of Calais.

 

When questioned why they would risk their lives on such a dangerous venture, some of the young men opting to leave Kurdistan (Iraq) in hopes of reaching the United Kingdom, speak of their disappointment of their country of origin. The large unemployment figures, the lack of opportunity, the corruption at high level, blaming prominent clans for their role in leading the autonomous region, the inequities and the misery they face in a geography rich with natural resources.

Their anger at their leaders and their determination to seek out opportunities for their futures elsewhere made them ripe for exploitation as human victims to ideological disparities and the ire felt by the president of Belarus at the condemnation heaped upon him, along with sanctions for the role he played in violating the voting and human rights of his population many of whom took to the streets in protest against a sham election returning him to power.

 

Mass protests over the discredited election led to a government crackdown, with people sent to prison or exiled   Getty Images

 

Belarusian President Lukashenko promised those anxious to cross into Europe that if they travelled to Minsk, a way could be found. That way was  to bus them in their hundreds to the border between Belarus and Poland, where they were encouraged to cut through the wire fencing and make their way through. The migrants made it clear their destination was not Poland, but the United Kingdom. Not just anywhere in Europe would do; the UK was their choice.

What resulted was a humanitarian tragedy, as all such movements of mass migration end up, with their destination country closing its borders to the masses of humanity camping out beyond their borders hoping for a miracle to transpire, that they would be welcomed, housed, fed, found employment and prosper, leaving their pasts of yearning for such opportunities behind in a fantasy reality that achieved all they had dreamed of.

The scene shifts from that catastrophe with its loss of lives and hopes and collapsed dreams, to the English Channel where for years, migrants from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere gather with the determination to puncture Europe's defences and gain entry to the opportunities they are convinced awaits their arrival. The same spirit of hope and defiance that people from failed Central American states, Africans and Haitians bring with them when they gather at the border between Mexico and the United States.

France has pledged once again to increase its surveillance of its northern shores to ensure that migrants fail in their attempts to cross the Channel to Britain, their preferred destination. The migrants are unimpressed. Huddling in their makeshift camps they vow that no measure of security to keep them from realizing their aspirations will defeat them. And nor would fear of the venture before them, crossing a waterway full of commercial traffic nor weathering conditions at sea in small inflatable dinghies.

These are watercraft meant to carry no more than ten people, and double and  triple that number are ushered into the boats at a time by unscrupulous people smugglers doing their brisk business with no inconvenient thoughts of placing people in dire danger disturbing the more important thoughts of their extortionate fees. Desperate people leaving behind poverty and war in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the world of Islamic social incompetence, corruption and violence view the potential dangers of a sea crossing as nothing compared to the miseries of life they have endured.

When the 31 men, women and children drowned in their failed crossing, relations between France and Britain, already strained, took a deeper dive of anger and resentment; no one likes to take credit for the deaths of vulnerable people fleeing misery and finding death. Prime Minister Johnson feels France to be at fault, while President Macron understands the responsibility for the situation to be entirely Britain's. Finally it seems to have occurred to them that cooperation might achieve more.

Britain has set out five steps for the two countries to embark upon in an effort to ensure there are no further migrant deaths. 

• Joint patrols to prevent more boats from leaving French beaches;
• The use of sensors and radar;
• Immediate work on a returns agreement with France;
• A similar deal with the European Union.

Having left the EU in Brexit, Britain was no longer part of the bloc's system of returning migrants to the first member-state that was entered. 

"My thoughts and sympathies are, first of all with the victims and their families, and it's an appalling thing that they have suffered."

"But I also want to say that this disaster underscores how dangerous it is to cross the Channel in this way. And it also shows how vital it is that we now step up our efforts to break the business model of the gangsters who are sending people to sea in this way, and that's why it's so important that we accelerate if we possibly can all the measures contained in our borders ... so that we distinguish between people who come here legally, and people who come here illegally."

"[Authorities would] leave no stone unturned to the business proposition of the human traffickers and the gangsters ... who are literally getting away with murder."

"[It was time for Britain, France and Europe to] step up [and work together]." 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson

A boat from a French volunteer sea rescue organization, Societe Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer, arrives Wednesday at Calais harbour carrying the bodies of migrants.