Osama Ahmed is originally from the suburbs of Aleppo before he left Syria in 2013 with his parents to seek refuge in Turkey. After 10 years in Turkey, his father began thinking about going to the United Kingdom where his two other sons had settled. The father and son set sail for Greece last summer – while the mother remained in Turkey. They obtained asylum in Greece but decided to continue their journey. Osama Ahmed and his father boarded a plane to Paris from Athens. They reached Calais by bus in early October.

"We tried to cross the Channel to reach the British coast three times in less than one month. The French police stopped us the first time before we even reached the beach. They stopped us again a second time while we were carrying the boat into the water with the other passengers. The police punctured the inflatable boat and pushed us back towards the beach.

The third attempt took place on October 23. We left the camp the day before, around 7am. We walked for 14 hours through small roads in the north of France, between farms and forests. I remember that we stopped under some trees near a castle to shelter from the rain. We continued on the road until we reached an area with tall grass. It was dark. We hid there while waiting for the sign from the smugglers.

As soon as the traffickers ordered us to go, we ran to the beach, and we saw the boat which was already in the water. We all got on board.

Read AlsoUK's Starmer to double border security funding to curb Channel migrant crossings

'I saw myself dying'

Water started to seep into our boat while we were still only a few meters away from the shore. So we decided to turn around. The smugglers who were still on the beach told us that it was normal for water to enter the boat, and forced us back out to sea.

The boat began sinking a few minutes later though, most likely because of the overcrowded conditions on board. There were 60-70 people, far beyond the boat's capacity.

The small inflatable boats used by migrants are only a few meters long and completely unadapted for crossing the Channel. Smugglers overload the boats with people to boost profits. 

We were far from the beach so we couldn't return to the coast. The boat completely deflated, and we all fell into the water. We did our best to cling to the sides of the boat. It was dark and I couldn't see anything around me but I understood that there was a deceased person in the deflated boat.

We yelled and tried to swim to the beach but it was too far away. We started to lose hope; I saw myself dying.

Two ships went by around 4am without helping us. The rescue teams finally arrived an hour and a half later.

Read AlsoChannel: Three more dead bodies found off French coast

'I looked everywhere for my father'

I lost consciousness after being rescued. I was taken to the hospital for the second-degree burns on my lower body, due to the mixture of sea water and gasoline. I looked everywhere for my father in the evening after waking up. I asked everyone: hospitals, police stations, associations but no one had seen him.

I borrowed a phone from someone in the street two days later and called my mother who was still in Turkey. She thought I had also died at sea. We are still in shock after my father's disappearance. We never expected something like this to happen in the Channel.

According to the authorities, 45 people were rescued that day and three bodies were found. But not my father's. Nor those of other people. In total, 14 migrants from my boat disappeared in the Channel during this shipwreck. They remain uncounted by the French authorities."

Contacted by InfoMigrants, the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said it has no knowledge of the disappearance of these 14 people. It also explained that the authorities only count the missing if they are seen at sea before disappearing into the water. Unlike the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the French Maritime Prefecture of the Channel does not rely on survivor's witness statements to establish a report on the missing.