In English and French on the blog and below :
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/

Minor killed by a truck

On the night of 30th January 2014 a 17 year old boy from Iran was killed by being driven over by a truck whilst trying to cross the border into the UK.

During this night, three people were trying cross the border to the UK by hiding inside a lorry. As they entered the truck they realized that the truck driver clearly saw them entering. So they were quite surprised when the driver did not say anything and shortly after drove off.

After around a 15 minute drive the truck stopped at a small parking space. The driver went to the back of the truck to shout to the people inside to come out. Because they were hiding behind boxes they had to climb over them
to get out, but they could not get out quick enough.

The truck started driving while they were still trying to get out. Finally they made it to the back to jump out of the truck. In the meantime the truck was already back on the highway! Two of them were lucky and landed on their feet and could leave the highway. The third person was not that lucky. He landed on his head and could not move. Even if the other two
tried to stop the traffic on the street, they could not help him. A second truck which passed hit the young boy and it tore him to pieces.

We are deeply shocked about another very tragic and brutal death here in Calais. The two people with him that night are of course very distraught. They witnessed him dying. Trying to cross to England is not an option for them any more. They left their home to find peace and protection. And they do not want to be the next one killed instead by the European border regime!

This is now the fourth death at the Calais border in the past 6 months; and at least the twenty second reported death in the past four years.

There is no justification for the countless suffering inflicted on people by the border regimes. People without the ‚right‘ identity in this world have to risk their lives day in and day out while the privileged class pass by in luxury.

The greed of the capitalist trade assigns more value to the goods – taken from every corner of the world – in the 7,000 trucks that cross daily into Britain than the people having to hide amongst them.

These regimes are a brutal combination of age old racism tied up with the mantra of ’national interest‘ where people profiting from the system are quite happy to reap all the benefits of the global militarized onslaught to ‚free up‘ capital and trade but are not willing to share any of the benefits or bear any of the consequences.

ID controls and the enforcement of identity papers, check points and prisons used to control the identity of populations has, and always will, result in persecution. Time and time again ID controls by authorities scanning populations in order to pick out certain categories of people is a telling sign that systematic abuse against those people is happening.

And the silence remains deafening. One death is too many. It will stop only when people rise up to make it stop. Regimes do not give up their control voluntarily.

See the full list of reported deaths at the Calais border :

http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/reported-deaths