Fisherman whose team was first at the scene of the migrant dinghy disaster yesterday says problem is 'prolific'
15 December 2022, 08:22 | Updated: 15 December 2022, 09:43
A fisherman colleague of the hero skipper who came to the rescue of scores of migrants in the English Channel yesterday said the problem is 'prolific'.
Ben Squire spoke with Nick Ferrari at Breakfast on LBC this morning after four migrants died after a small boat capsized in the freezing cold water in the early hours of Wednesday morning while making the dangerous crossing to Britain.
He said he wasn't on the boat but his team were first at the scene, explaining: “I was awoken at 4’o’clock in the morning, took a couple of deep breaths, it’s never a phone call like that to see how I’m doing.
“I could hear it was Ray and I could hear in his voice they were in a situation. He said ‘Ben, we’re riding the thick of a rescue situation with a boat carrying people across the channel sinking’.”
“It’s an 100ft scallop trawler and we carry six people.
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“They were engaged in fishing so they were towing the gear and the boat actually came quite near them and was clearly sinking so one of the crewman alerted the skipper. A 100ft boat being manoeuvred alongside what was about a 15ft rubber dingy, with the fishing gear still in the water, it’s some skill to be honest.
“The bottom of the dingy had some away, it was mid-channel. Right in the centre about 12 miles off land.
“The fishermen who work in that part of the channel are in the thick of it. We’ve been involved in an incident before, that was last summer, it’s prolific.”
