Home Office Vigils 15 months on
Image: Pat Gaffney
The list grows. Border names become more familiar. The deaths more shocking.
Every month for 15 months, a small group of Christians has gathered outside the Home Office in London's West End to remember and pray for those who died the year before while trying to reach the UK and mainland Europe to seek sanctuary. A dedicated group in the Netherlands, United Against Racism, scours the media for tiny incidents - a capsized boat here, an accident there, a river drowning, and compiles the shocking statistics, so that we can remember the huge price that thousands are paying for seeking safety from persecution, war or starvation. The incidents are so easily disregarded, till assembled into a terrifying list.
On Monday around 20 of us stood in the pouring rain to read from the November 2021 list, which comprised no less than 66 incidents. It was the chilly unrelenting rain that perhaps brought home to us some of the realities we were hearing. It was a longer list than usual: three pages, with 317 names or details, swollen by the 27 who died off the coast of Calais last year1. Names are a bonus. We can give this or that person, the dignity of a name, age and nationality. Such as:
'Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, a woman of 24. An Iraqi Kurd, who drowned, when her boat sank off the coast of Calais. Her arrival was supposed to be a surprise for her fiancé in the UK'.
What is more chilling is a huge number of deaths of people about whom we know nothing. Such as:
'14 unknown people (four children and seven women from Africa, who died of hunger and thirst, when their boat was three weeks at sea from Dakhla in Western. Sahara, on its way to Gran Canaria, Spain; 20 were rescued'.
The list gives reliable sources, but no names were retrieved. Their feelings and sufferings during the three weeks at sea are unimaginable. And likewise, those of the 77 people who died off the coast of Libya, 'from Sudan, Pakistan, Gambia, Nigeria Ghana, (who) drowned, when their boat sank off Ras Ijder, Libya, bound for Italy'.
In the Pope's recent film 'The Letter', the young African delegate to a papal consultation on climate receives messages about just such a boat sinking off the coast of Africa, with some of his friends aboard. We and his companions in Rome, the Pope's guests, see a harrowing video clip during their conference on climate change. The facilitator vows: "We cannot look away now: now that we have seen what is happening - we cannot plead ignorance of the lives taken by climate change."
Yet here we are, the vigil group, recalling the deaths of last November, with an increased roll-call of victims. The routes are by now depressingly familiar to us, speaking volumes of the desperation of those crossing: yet we still struggle over the names:
Rasa Ijder, Libya; Arguineguin, Gran Canaria; the River Bidoasa at Irun, on the Spanish-French border; Wolka Terechowska, Poland, at the Polish-Belorus border, Ventimiglia near the Italian-French border, Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in Morocco; Izmir, at the Turkish-Greek border. And of course, the English Channel, at the Franco-British border. Fortress Europe indeed.
Climate change is a significant push factor for many migrants. Fr Martin Newell of the London Catholic Worker gave the reflection on Monday, highlighting the Climate Fund set up for Loss and Damage for poorer countries: he told us: "As disappointing as the Cairo COP27 was in agreeing plans on emissions reduction, the Loss and Damage fund is a recognition that we are all one, that everything is connected. It is a recognition that future plans to reduce emissions, particularly from the global south, are dependent on the wealthy and powerful recognising that we have a shared destiny; that injustices as well as climate emissions flow freely across borders. An injustice in one place will become an injustice elsewhere. At this point in history, the nations of the global south do not have to take it, or accept the injustice, lying down..."
Every month Christians meet in front of the Home Office, rain, hail or shine, to witness to the victims of that injustice. Join us, keep in touch, find out more. Contact barbarakentish@talktalk.net or johanmaertens@hotmail.com
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November 23rd 2022
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