Driver’s actions ‘saved us all’ during small boat crossing, man tells court

An Afghan man described how a driver’s actions “saved us all” during a small boat crossing in the English Channel in which four people were known to have died, a court has heard.

Ahmrullah Ahmadzi was travelling in a boat with 46 people on board and told jurors how the vessel was travelling for around two hours with water pouring in, starting at his ankles and eventually reaching his knees.

But it was the actions of the driver that “saved us all”, he told a jury at Canterbury Crown Court.

The court was hearing the first day of prosecution evidence in the trial of Ibrahima Bah, a Senegalese national, of no fixed address, who is accused of four counts of manslaughter and for piloting a vessel facilitating unlawful entry to the UK on December 14 2022.

Bah, who denies the charges, sat in the dock accompanied by an interpreter.

Mr Ahmadzi, aided by a Pashto interpreter, said: “The driver kept saying ‘don’t worry, calm down, I will take you there’.

“The boat carried on driving because if the boat stopped, we would have drowned much quicker because the length of the waves was getting bigger and bigger.

It was the fault of the passengers who didn't listen to the driver, the driver was trying to help us, but they didn't listen

“It was the driver’s help, if he didn’t help us we would have all died.”

He said the driver’s “last push” to get the sinking boat near a fishing boat where people were able to cling on until rescue teams arrived was what “saved us all”.

The witness also added that it was the “stupidity” of people in the boat who stood up which had caused the boat to collapse.

He added: “To be honest, it was the fault of the passengers who didn’t listen to the driver, the driver was trying to help us, but they didn’t listen.”

There was water everywhere, there was screaming and shouting, saying we are going to die

The court heard evidence earlier from an Afghan teenager who was also on board the dingy, who said that “everyone was screaming” and that he began washing himself with seawater for his last rites as “he thought he was going to die”.

“There was water everywhere, there was screaming and shouting, saying we are going to die,” he said in a video police interview recorded in January and shown to the court.

The witness added: “Because the boat collapsed onto itself and … some of the people, some of them were trapped inside, some of them managed to get out and some were inside and the boat was going down.”

The Afghan youth, whose uncle paid 1,500 euros for his safe passage from Dunkirk to the UK, also shared how the group was taken by traffickers to the water at around 1am, getting them to carry the boat and engine to the water’s edge before sending them off.

He said how three traffickers who organised their journey were “pushing” and “kicking” people, including him, to hurry up to get on the boat as police were coming.

Both witnesses told of how no trafficker came with them on the blown-up dinghy.

The Afghan teenager also told officers he did not see who was controlling the engine and that on the boat “everyone was by themselves praying to stay alive”.

But he thought that it was an African man driving the boat.

Asked by Kent police officers what they expected from the crossing, the Afghan teenager said it was “common knowledge” among those in the boat that once they entered British waters “they would be rescued”.

The trial, which began on Monday, is expected to last four weeks.