Dark channel: The people smugglers and their clients
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
Increasing numbers of people from Iran are being sold an escape package out of Turkey and then onto the UK. Who are the men, women and children risking their lives crossing the world's busiest shipping route? And who are the people who sell them the trip?
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Guest: Louise Callaghan, Middle east correspondent for The Sunday Times.
Host: David Aaronovitch.
Clips: BBC, Channel 4 News.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In a bright poster-decorated travel agents office of a busy street in Istanbul, the people's |
| 0:13.1 | smuggler flashes his winning smile. England, yes, of course, no problem. Twenty minutes |
| 0:20.0 | to cross the channel in a small boat he says, and in England, health and wealth await. |
| 0:25.9 | When you get there, you can immediately get work, you can immediately get asylum, you |
| 0:29.4 | can bring the whole rest of your family. They sell it as the land of milk and honey. |
| 0:33.4 | Scared of drowning? Don't be. Hundreds of thousands of people have completed the journey he |
| 0:38.0 | reassures and only a handful have not made it. The rest are living happily in the UK. For |
| 0:44.4 | a very reasonable price of £10,000, your life will be transformed. |
| 0:50.4 | There was a tragic inevitability to what happened today off the coast of northern France. |
| 0:54.9 | Two adults and two children died after a board sank of the coast near Dunkirk. |
| 0:59.9 | An attempt by migrants to cross the channel from France has resulted in tragedy after |
| 1:05.0 | two adults and two children died when the boat carrying them sank. |
| 1:09.9 | Increasing numbers of Kurds from Iran are being sold hope in the shape of an escape package |
| 1:15.5 | out of Turkey and then to the UK. But who are the men, women and children who risk their |
| 1:21.5 | lives crossing the world's busier shipping route in substandard vessels in search of a better |
| 1:27.7 | life in Britain? And who are the people who sell them the trip? |
| 1:32.6 | You're listening to stories of our times and the times and the Sunday times I'm David |
| 1:35.8 | Aronovich. Today, dark channel, the people smugglers and their clients. |
| 1:56.2 | I'm based in Istanbul in a place called Jahangir and I have been for a few years now. It's |
| 2:01.1 | on a little hill and it overlooks the bus for us. It's a very beautiful place. |
| 2:05.2 | That's Louise Callahan Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Times. Louise has been following |
| 2:10.5 | the migrant crisis closely since she was posted to Istanbul. |
... |
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