Safe routes or more tragedies: the choice is ours

For years, Safe Passage International has been at the forefront of supporting refugees to reach safety and family across Europe, providing vital legal support to families on the move. Throughout this journey, we have painfully witnessed tragedy after tragedy at sea, consistently calling for safe routes as the only real solution. In this blog, our Head of Campaigns and Communications, Gunes Kalkan, discusses the lessons we must take from these tragedies and what we need to keep pushing and hoping for.

Having worked in this field for some time, you develop a certain resilience to bad news. But the magnitude of the events of the last two weeks has felt different. At least 20 lives lost, including six children and a pregnant woman. All drowned in a small stretch of water between two of the wealthiest nations in the world. This tragedy is a failure – of government policy, of compassion, and of society as a whole. After at least 27 people tragically died in the Channel in 2021, we said 'never again'. Yet, these senseless and entirely preventable deaths have continued to happen, repeatedly. In this context, it can feel almost trivial to seek out the things that inspire hope, that motivate us to keep going, and to continue the fight. But for me, two key elements provide hope that, sooner or later, we will put an end to these tragedies.

Firstly, the focus of so many news articles, radio and TV broadcasts, and of almost every response across the refugee sector and beyond: the lack of safe routes. Today, the government is under significant pressure on this issue, and, sooner or later, this pressure will make a difference. This wasn’t always the case. When the number of Channel crossings began to rise in 2020, the call for safe routes was just one message among many, and it was not seen as a way to stop the tragic loss of life. But advocacy takes time. Over the years, our message has gained traction and has now become the default stance for many in the public and political spheres. Years of campaigning for refugee justice, have brought us to this point. And we will keep going, just as we always have, until refugees can find safety and rebuild their lives in the UK.

Secondly, the shift in terminology. Language matters more than people realise. For years, the term “safe and legal routes” was dominant and we found our opponents co-opt this language to imply that all other routes were  somehow 'illegal'. We challenged that, pushing politicians, campaigners and the media to adopt ‘safe routes’ instead. Today, we’ve seen a notable shift. The language of ‘safe routes’ is now front and centre in the  discussion around people crossing the Channel. These words matter – instead of naming journeys legal or illegal, they shift the focus towards safety, compassion, and saving lives, and this has an important impact on how the debate is framed.

These may seem like small steps of progress in a prolonged fight against injustice and the loss of life, but they are what keep us going. I truly believe that, in time, these efforts will accumulate, and we will achieve our ultimate goal: safe routes to the UK opened, the right to safety restored, and no more deaths in the Channel.