Channel migrant deaths on the rise

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Adie presents stories from France, India, the US, Panama and Spain.

It’s been a year since the UK signed a deal with France to help reduce the number of boats crossing the Channel and break up the smuggling gangs. And whilst the number of crossings is falling, there’s been a sharp rise in migrant deaths, mostly by drowning, as they take ever greater risks to reach the UK. Andrew Harding is in Calais to find out why.

In the coming days, India will be calling national elections. Voting will take place over several weeks. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, seems unstoppable, with many expecting he will win a third consecutive term in office. Samira Hussain examines his enduring popularity.

The film Oppenheimer, about the creator of the atomic bomb, dominated the Oscars with seven Academy awards. Much of the film is set in the town of Los Alamos, in New Mexico where physicist J Robert Oppenheimer carried out his research. Emma Vardy reports on its lasting effects on local communities.

The Panama canal is vital to international trade, providing an essential shipping route and a short cut between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. But, as Michelle Fleury explains, fewer ships are able to use it at the moment, because of a drought.

And in southern Spain, we join Polly Hope in Seville cathedral, amongst the visitors and the faithful as they mark Lent with a procession through the historic streets of the city.

Producer: Sally Abrahams Production co-ordinator: Sophie Hill Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.0	Today we're in India ahead of the elections there,
0:09.0	examining why Prime Minister Norengra Modi remained so popular as he bids for a third term in office.
0:16.5	While Oppenheimer triumphed at the Academy Awards this week, we're in New Mexico to hear
0:21.8	a lesser-known side of the atomic bomb story.
0:25.0	In the jungles of Panama, we find out how a small rusted ruler and five extra feet
0:32.0	can tell us so much about the global economy.
0:35.0	And in southern Spain we're in Seville for the annual Lent procession
0:40.0	alongside a life-size figure of Christ, resplendent in purple velvet robe and shining gilded
0:47.3	halo.
0:48.3	First, it's a year since the UK and France struck a new extended deal to try and stop the small boats
0:56.4	crossing the channel. The British government is giving the French almost half a billion pounds
1:02.4	over three years to spend on high-tech solutions
1:05.7	like drones and increased police patrols on the beaches. While there were fewer
1:11.6	crossings last year the number of migrants who've died trying to reach the UK has continued to rise.
1:19.0	So, will more money make a difference?
1:22.0	Our correspondent Andrew Harding reports from Northern France.
1:26.8	When it comes to Calais, those long empty beaches, the plaintiff's screech of seagulls, I should declare a bias.
1:34.4	From the age of age and throughout my childhood, I would travel by ferry from Calais to Dover
1:40.1	at the beginning of every term.
1:42.0	My family lived in Belgium and I was sent for my sins to a British
1:46.7	boarding school which perhaps explains the tinge of gloom, of homesickness that closet me now as I drive through the fields of Northern France under a
	...

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