Sixteen
'An Eritrean man has died after being hit by a freight train at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel', BBC Radio 4 tells me in one line. It's a depressing piece of morning news. Yet in the last two weeks it's become all too familiar; somewhere between a recurring nightmare and expectation.
Yesterday, on the 29th of September, a 20-year-old Iraqi man was found in the back of a lorry; he had been crushed by pallets that must have shifted when the lorry transporting them braked suddenly. British reports say he had been travelling with two other family members, though don't mention the fourth person reported by French media.
Last Wednesday, in an event that mirrors today's news, a still unnamed minor was apparently killed by a freight train near the Calaisien Tunnel entrance.
On Thursday the 17th, Abdel Kader Hanna was electrocuted in the same tunnel.
This is the sixteenth known death around the Calais border this year. Sixteen deaths, and not, as the BBC and many other mainstream media channels report, thirteen. I'm not sure whether these figures are simply wrong, or whether the media choose to dismiss some of these deaths as somehow 'unqualified' for their statistics. While of course there will be incidents we don't know about, and different circumstances and events leading to each, the notion that some lives mean more – or are more significant or qualifiable – than others is absurd. This notion, whether outright, denied or unconscious appears at the root of a lot of border-related movement and events. Persecution, inequality, and conflict between parties, ethnicities or belief-holders are common inciters of migration, and all suggest that one individual or group is less worthy than another. This might also be suggested in the access to opportunity, protection and space; the opportunity, protection and space that some are allowed while others are not; the opportunity, protection and space defined by borders.
Like previous and ongoing events, news of these deaths seems like an occasion for both silence and noise-making; to mourn those whose lives have been lost and respectfully dedicate space to those affected, and to shout out, to draw attention to the events going unrecognised or ill-reported.
Sixteen deaths, not thirteen – and these are the known deaths, in the last nine months only! Sixteen individuals, not merely a line in a news report, but human beings just like those who write, programme and hear these media accounts. Sixteen deaths, not broken bones, grazed and bloodied hands, aching muscles and extensive trauma and psychological damage, seen daily in the Calais 'Jungle' camp. Sixteen times this year that people have been pushed so far that on this tiny section of the planet between Calais and England they have been compelled to risk their lives, and lost.
This is the sixteenth time since the beginning of the year; this is the fourth time in two weeks. This is also a call to raise further questions; why is this happening? Are these most recent deaths linked to the extra pressures of the latest Calais events, of evictions and police action, of increased security and more fences? Just what was intended by these measures?
