Boy, 12, who survived Channel small boat tragedy 'fled Afghanistan after ... trends now
A young boy rescued from a Channel boat tragedy last month had 'fled Afghanistan after the Taliban killed his family', the captain of a rescue vessel said.
Four people died and more than 30 people were pulled from the icy waters by a fishing crew on December 14 after their flimsy dinghy capsized in the English Channel.
Captain Raymond Strachan, 54, said he was woken just before 3am by his crew who had found migrants in the freezing waters desperately holding on to the side of his boat.
Those rescued said they came from Afghanistan, Iraq, Senegal and India, and Captain Strachan said the youngest survivor was a 12-year-old boy whose parents had been killed by the Taliban.
The 12-year-old boy was the youngest survivor of a Channel boat tragedy last month, when his dinghy capsized in the icy waters
The floor of the inflatable dinghy had torn because 'there were too many people onboard'
Captain Strachan was told by the migrants that they had each paid £5,000 to a smuggler in France for passage to the UK.
They were each given a warm shower before being handed the crew's dry clothing and covered with quilts to get their body temperatures up.
He told The Sunday Post: 'The sea was calm, but there was an eerie haze on the water. The first people we rescued were pulled out of the water. They had swum towards us.'
He said there were more than 40 people trying to make the crossing in an inflatable dinghy designed for about 12.
There were people wearing just 'jeans and a T-shirt and no life jacket' and the captain described how the floor of the dinghy had ripped due to overcrowding and was letting water in.
He added: 'One of the youngest we picked up was an Afghan boy. He was the first I spoke to because he looked so young. I asked how old he was and he said 12.
'I took off his wet jacket and life jacket and told him to get down below and get into a warm shower. We made sure he was warm, dry and safe. Another two kids from Afghanistan, 12 and 13, were also rescued by my crew.'
A few days after the rescue a police officer called him with a message from one of the 12-year-old boys.
'He said he wanted to thank us for saving his life because that night he thought he was going to die. He said he fled Afghanistan because all his family were killed by the Taliban,' Strachan said.
Kent county council has taken 12 children who were on the dinghy into care.
More than 30 people were pulled from the icy waters by the fishing crew of the 80ft scallop boat Arcturus, pictured, while four others lost their lives in the tragedy
Charles Blyth is the safety officer at Oceanic Drift Fishing, the company that owns the trawler which saved the migrants.
In December he told the Today programme on Radio 4: 'The vessel was about 30 miles into the Channel at the time. The skipper was asleep and the first mate was on watch.
'I think it was just by sheer coincidence that our vessel was in the right place at the right time to initiate a rescue.
'As soon as the first mate saw the causality vessel, the alarm was raised, the skipper was out of bed and the coastguard was contacted
