FAMILIES of the victims who drowned in the Channel last year have criticised the British authorities, saying they have been “ignored” and left without answers a year on from the disaster. 

Today marks one year since the deaths of at least 27 people in the worst maritime disaster in the English Channel for three decades. 

Just two of the 34 people believed to be on the flimsy dinghy survived the boat’s journey from France to Britain on November 24, with five still missing, presumed dead. 

For Zana Mamand Mohammad, whose 18-year-old brother Twana died in the tragedy, each day since that fateful night has felt “like a year,” as he and his family wait for answers.   

In an interview with the Morning Star on the first anniversary of the disaster, Mohammad, who is from Iraqi Kurdistan, said he was frustrated by the slow pace of the British authorities’ investigation into the disaster, and failure to contact them. 

Speaking through an interpreter over the phone from Kurdistan, he says: “The UK authorities have not been in touch with us, nor any of the families whose relatives passed away trying to cross.

“The French authorities have been far more helpful and have had more communication but the UK has done absolutely nothing for us.

“Someone has passed away at sea and you are not helping us. It’s as if we are the ones who are also dying at sea, that’s how it makes us feel. We need support, we need help and they are just ignoring us.”

Describing the pain of the past 12 months, he told the Star: “It feels like it’s been 10 years. Each day passed like it was a year.”

Saman Alipour, whose younger brother Sirwan, 23, also died that night, told the Star his family had also not been contacted. 

“It’s very terrible that we don’t hear anything from them till this moment,” the 25-year-old medical student says.

“Actually it’s very very difficult, the fact that this big tragedy, this unexpected tragedy, happened to these people from Kurdistan who were on their way to get to their dreams.

“And the fact that [the authorities] haven’t answered any of our questions, it makes it much more difficult [to accept].”

Over the past year, Mohammad has fought tirelessly for answers, launching legal challenges in France, Britain and Iraqi Kurdistan in a bid to uncover why his brother drowned in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, and to hold those potentially responsible for their deaths to account. 

The bereaved families are calling on the authorities to make contact with them and speed up their investigations into the deaths.

“We want everything transparent and everything to be clear … so we can know all the events that happened and why they happened, and the why is very important,” he says. 

“I would like the whole thing brought to justice, for all the survivors [and] the families.”

Relatives and friends of those who perished in the icy waters on November 24 are desperate to understand why their loved ones were not rescued by the French and British authorities, despite receiving numerous calls pleading for help. 

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is investigating the emergency response in Britain, but it’s understood that the agency will not release its final report until the summer of next year.

An MAIB spokesperson said tracing the relatives of the victims has been complex process. “MAIB has had contact with the legal representatives of some of the relatives, though many of these have only come forward recently and do not yet represent all the known deceased,” the spokesperson continued. “We are in the process of contacting the families of those lost and will be engaging with as many as we can in the coming weeks.”

A separate independent investigation, authorised in June by the Department for Transport, has yet to receive a start date.

Asked about the progress of the independent inquiry, the DfT said it is awaiting the MAIB's final report, which "will inform the scope and form of any further investigation."

Meanwhile an investigation by the French police into how the coastal emergency services unit, known as Cross, handled the incident is also under way. 

Recently leaked tapes from that investigation have put the response of both the French and English coastguard under intense scrutiny after revealing that the services “passed the buck” over who was responsible for the rescue during the crucial hours the boat sank. 

Asked about the tapes, Mohammad said they showed “it’s clear that neither of these governments care about trying to do the right thing or do justice. They don’t have any consideration for the people’s lives.”

The tapes of the French coastguard’s calls that night also revealed insensitive remarks made by call handlers about asylum-seekers. “It’s almost like … they’re making fun of the whole situation,” says Mohammad.

“At the time they were making these phone calls, saying ‘look …we’re going to drown,’ their response was: ‘Enough already, we get it, you’re boring us with these constant phone calls’.” 

Twana left his hometown of Ranya in Iraqi Kurdistan three months before he made the fateful attempt to cross to Britain. He was the youngest of five, and loved football and taekwondo, organising his day around the two sports. 

“He knew there were so many more possibilities in England and he was very very talented and gifted and unfortunately there wasn’t any opportunities for him in Kurdistan,” Mohammad says. 

Twana’s body has yet to be recovered from the Channel one year on. The majority of those who died were from Iraqi Kurdistan, but there were others from Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Somalia and Egypt.

Of the 27 people whose bodies have been recovered, seven were women, and three were children — all from the same family. 

Sirwan, who was a member of Iran’s Kurdish minority, was just 23 when he drowned in the Channel that night. The pain of losing his only brother is still incredibly raw for Alipour. 

Speaking over the phone through an interpreter, the 25-year-old’s voice breaks with emotion as he recalls how his brother was “loved by everyone.

“He was a very lovable man and he would always smile and laugh and he didn’t take things seriously, he would laugh and joke around,” Alipour says. 

Although he enjoyed playing football and hoped to pursue a career in the game, Sirwan left school at the age of 17 to work as a car mechanic in order to provide for his family, while Alipour studied outside of the city. 

“It wasn’t just a tragedy for us in our family, it was a tragedy for the community,” he says. “Sirwan was part of the community and everyone loved him.”

In the 12 months since the tragedy, Alipour says his parents have aged 20 years due to the grief of losing their son. The medical student says seeing his parents suffer has compounded his grief: “I was grieving for Sirwan on one hand and for my mother and father on the other.”

Alipour also wants justice for his beloved brother. For him, that means the British and French authorities ensuring that no-one else goes through the suffering his family has endured. 

“We want justice in the way that this never happens again,” he says. “We don’t want anyone else to go through what we went through. We don’t want compensation. And we won’t back down until we have some results.”

But he fears that another disaster in the Channel is inevitable, both because of the “immoral” smugglers who he says treat desperate people “like products,” as well as the lack of compassion British and French authorities show towards people on the move. 

In the year since the disaster, the British government has doubled down on security at the border, and introduced anti-refugee laws making it more difficult for people to claim asylum in Britain. Alipour says this response fails to understand why people make dangerous journeys. 

“It angers me very much, the fact that these people don’t consider where these people have come from, for example Iran where people are killed on the street every day. These things should be considered … not deporting them and making the borders even more tough to breach. They should consider these facts and look at their morals again.”

Alipour adds that he wants to see both governments show more compassion to asylum-seekers knocking on their doors. 

“I hope that the two authorities and any authorities watch over the people who immigrate to their countries. They don’t do this out of anything but a last hope because they don’t have any joy or any hope where they live.”

Today, vigils will be held in France and Britain to remember the 32 lives lost on November 24 last year.

On this sad day, Alipour says he hopes the memories of his brother and those who perished with him in the icy waters of the Channel will “never fade away.” 

Bethany Rielly is the Morning Star’s home affairs reporter — Twitter: @b_rielly.