X is for X-ING – Crossing the sea to escape

A contribution to the #AtoZchallenge 2024

Flight by sea

Whatever the reason people leave their country to seek a new home, the decision is never easy. Often they have suffered physically under some harsh regime or hostile neighbours. They may have had to abandon their possessions or even family members they would have wished to take with them. If they have small children, clandestine travel with little comfort and minimal supplies becomes extremely difficult.

Leaving one country to reach another often means crossing over dangerous sea. Where will we find a boat? Will it be seaworthy? Do we have to row? None of us know how to handle sails. Our children can’t swim and we adults aren’t much good at it either. What will happen if the boat capsizes? How will we be able to navigate, especially since we’ll be travelling at night? Can we find an experienced sailor who will take us across to safety?

In the book ‘Greet Suzon for me’

My book ‘Greet Suzon for me’, which is due to be published later in 2024, is about the Huguenot family d’Albert from Alençon, Normandy. They suffer such persecution from King Louis XIV and the Catholic Church that they see no alternative than to undertake the perilous journey to the British channel island of Jersey. Stéphane, a friendly fisherman, agrees to take them there in his tartane¹. However, they are caught in a severe storm. And as Gédéon desperately tries to help Stéphane lower the sail, the yard snaps and the sail tears apart.

After some desperate struggles, the boat founders on a hidden rock. Dawn breaks, and the plaintive cries of seagulls suggest land is near. Finally, Stéphane, Gédéon, his mother, his sick sister and their dog manage to reach the tiny rocky islet of Les Écréhous. But that is only halfway to freedom…

Today’s refugees

Much has changed geopolitically and technologically in the intervening centuries. This hasn’t stopped thousands of people from choosing each day to flee their homelands because of religious or political oppression, economic factors, disasters, or environmental conditions. Whether its sub-Saharan Africans fleeing desperate conditions in Libya in tiny boats for Malta, Lampedusa, or Italy; impoverished south and central Americans who have trekked for weeks through hostile regions and then try to cross from Mexico to the United States of America; or misled and cheated Asians, risking all to cross the English Channel from Calais to Dover – many succumb to the rough seas or the unseaworthiness of their vessels.

Games is a spectacular book describing the traumatic experiences of several Afghan refugees who are forced by inhuman living conditions to flee their home and seek a new place to live. I have had personal contact with families who spent years advancing slowly from Asia or the Middle East towards Europe, and experienced repeated brutal pushbacks² by hostile authorities in Iran, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria or Croatia before they finally arrived in the West.

One man I know, who had no experience at sea, tells how he passed mutilated bodies on the Turkish shore before the professional smugglers gave him charge of thirty people in an inflatable dinghy made for ten. They sent them out at night, with very little fuel, telling him to head for some distant lights on a Greek island. Two accompanying boats capsized, causing him the trauma of seeing men, women and children frantically struggling in the waves and not being able to save them from drowning. His fuel ran out before they reached land, but most of the passengers managed to wade through the shallow water, only to find themselves alone on an uninhabited rocky islet…

Statistics of failed migration

At least 8,565 people died on migration routes worldwide in 2023 … more than half of the deaths were a result of drowning.
The Mediterranean crossing continues to be the deadliest route for migrants on record, with at least 3,129 deaths and disappearances in 2023.

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Here are the previous daily posts: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W

1. a small boat used both as a fishing ship and for coastal trading ↩︎
2. state measures by which refugees and migrants are illegally forced back over a border – generally immediately after they crossed it – without consideration of their individual circumstances and without any possibility to apply for asylum ↩︎

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