Over the last few days, more details following the attack in Annecy have come out. Here’s what we’ve learnt so far.
Asylum, benefit fraud, and a knife attack
The attacker, 31-year-old Syrian Abdalmash H, is a refugee who had been granted asylum in Sweden. His full name has not been released. On Thursday, 8th June 2023, he stabbed four children and two adults in Annecy, an Alpine city in France.
Footage emerged shortly after the attack – it’s too graphic for us to post on our website, but it clearly shows Abdalmash calmly but quickly searching out and stabbing children. This was a calculated attack, and children were the target. Nobody has died yet, but all the children are in critical condition in hospital. The victims included one British child.
Police managed to detain Abdalmash after shooting him in the legs, and he is now in custody. No information has been released relating to any stated motive. Still, he left his wife and child in Sweden to ‘seek asylum’ in France after three failed attempts to gain Swedish citizenship. However, his French asylum application was rejected because he already had refugee status in Sweden. The timeline is unclear, and we do not know how long he remained in France since his asylum application was refused. But this case raises a familiar question: why do we allow migrants to make asylum applications when they have travelled through multiple safe countries, and why are they not immediately removed when their application is refused?
Abdalmash’s application in France was rejected in this case, but how many safe countries did he pass through on his journey from Syria to Sweden and then to France? Why did he not stop at the first safe country and apply for asylum there? Could the benefits offered be less attractive than a wealthier, more generous European country?
While living in Sweden, he was apparently ‘convicted of benefit fraud’, according to his ex-wife. So, despite ‘not being known’ to security services and having ‘no obvious terrorist motivation’, this individual has been a European problem for some time. Perhaps he wanted to move to France to continue his benefit fraud, or maybe his final destination was the UK and he was planning to cross the English Channel.
Noise from the media and silence from politicians
Then there is the question of religion. Perhaps the least important factor in all of this, Abdalmash is a Christian, according to his asylum claim. There is no clear indication that this plays into his motivations, but this is likely to be the factor most focused on by the mainstream media, and they are not likely to let us forget that Abdalmash claims to be a Christian. There is also a high possibility that Abdalmash was advised by one of the many NGOs that operate across Europe to claim asylum on the grounds of Christian persecution in Syria.
And what of the media? Their primary concern is the ‘far-right’ reaction and how this attack may be “used” politically. This is a political event, as Europe’s open border policy allowed Abdalmash into Europe and ultimately into the children’s play area in a park in Annecy.
Finally, how has the political establishment reacted? French politicians held a minute’s silence, and French President Emmanuel Macron visited the attack site the next day. This is not enough – politicians must accept responsibility for this attack. The whole political establishment has blood on its hands, and no amount of silence can change that.
This would never have happened in a country run with the best interest of its people at heart. Like many European countries, France has seen countless attacks by migrants but continues to accept many more into their country, where many inevitably cross the English Channel.
If our government doesn’t act, as the Homeland Party would, to completely shut down this route into the UK, the next Abdalmash H may be in a children’s play area closer to home.
