More than 20 Kurdish refugees from the ship that beached off southern France four weeks ago are believed to have come to Britain, said Sunday Times.
The British daily said that the refugees are likely to have completed the final leg of their five-week journey from Iraq with the aid of smugglers operating from a Red Cross camp at Sangatte, near Calais. Thirty more Kurds from the ship remain in the camp waiting to cross the Channel.
The ship, East Sea, crashed into rocks on the Cote d'Azur on February 17 with 911 Iraqi-Kurdish refugees crammed into its hold. The crew, part of the smuggling ring, fled in small boats from the wreck.
Earlier last week one of the women from the ship, who gave her name only as Atije for fear that British immigration officers might deport her when she arrives at Dover, described how gangs of smugglers arrived at their camp near Frejus in the south of France days after the beaching.
They offered to transport them to Calais and other ports in northern France and Belgium before smuggling them into Britain, she said.
"I paid them $500 for the trip. I was put into a van and then a lorry and driven with four other people to Calais, but many were put on trains," she said —Albawaba.com
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