'I live in hope': A Channel drama survivor's search for missing dad

Osama Ahmed's life took a dramatic turn one night in October when the small boat that was to carry him and his father to the English coast sank shortly after setting out from France.

The 20-year-old Syrian was rescued but when he woke up in hospital and asked about his dad nobody knew anything.

Since that moment, Osama has been looking frantically for his father with whom he had hoped to start a new life in Britain.

Beyond the tragically long list of deaths in the Channel of migrants trying to cross, another statistic is also growing fast: Missing people.

"I live in hope of finding him," Osama told AFP in a house in Calais on the French coast where an association, La Margella, put him up. He rejected any idea that his dad may not have survived. "God willing, I will find him," he said.

On the night between October 22 and 23 father and son tried to make it across the water, like 30,000 other migrants this year alone. It was their third attempt.

They were part of a group of around 60 people hiding in the dunes who, at the signal of the people smugglers, rushed to the small boat waiting for them in the water.

But barely one kilometre (1,000 yards) into the journey, water began to seep in.

The group turned the boat around, but the smugglers on the beach pushed them back out to sea, Osama said.

He said they had been promised lifejackets that failed to materialise because, the smugglers claimed, they had been damaged.

The boat's air chambers became completely deflated soon after departure, and everyone on board tumbled into the sea.

For half an hour Osama and his father managed to cling to each other, but when the boat began to disintegrate amid the panic and darkness they were separated.

Two ferries passed without stopping, and eventually rescue services arrived.

French maritime authorities reported finding three bodies, one woman and two men, after the drama that occurred two kilometres (1.2 miles) off the French coast.

Forty-five people were rescued but survivors reported that there had been more people on board, suggesting that a number had gone missing.

- 'World's nicest man' -

The drama was followed by other, similar incidents, in the Channel and authorities have since found nine bodies floating in the sea or washed up on northern French beaches, none of them the young Syrian's dad.

Osama, who was treated in hospital for burns caused by saltwater and fuel, has been to every police station, hospital and Red Cross office in the area in search of his father, in vain.

He told officials what clothes his dad wore last, and about the ring in which his name is engraved. Police took a sample of Osama's DNA.

Every time a body is found along the coast, Osama fears it could be his father. As the excruciating wait lingers, his life plans are on hold.

His family fled from Syria 13 years ago, to settle in Turkey. Two of Osama's brothers are already in England, having made the journey also in small boats.

He flashed a big smile as he described his dad, "the world's nicest man" and his "role model".

On his phone he has a picture of him, a man in his 50s wearing a white shirt and a jacket, and sporting a grey moustache.

French associations say the authorities should do more to help survivors locate their loved ones after failed crossings.

"People go missing and their families find it very hard to access services that might assist them in their search," said Jeanne Bonnet, co-founder of La Margelle which tries to help migrants navigate French officialdom.

"We sometimes get the feeling that we're being given the runaround," she said.

Osama, she said, was offered no accommodation when he left hospital, injured and traumatised, so he went back to the same camp he had stayed in previously. That's where La Margella took charge of him.

Braving cold temperatures and fog, close to 1,200 migrants have reached England onboard small boats since the beginning of November, according to British official figures.

Sixty people have been confirmed dead this year -- not counting the most recently-discovered bodies and missing people -- a record number since such Channel crossings started in 2018.