CAMPAIGNERS will gather outside the Home Office tonight to mark three years since a migrant boat sunk in the Channel, killing four people, and to protest at the “unjust” imprisonment of an asylum-seeker.

The 2022 tragedy led to the conviction of Ibrahima Bah, from Senegal, who was a teenager at the time. 

Campaigners say he was coerced by people-smugglers into steering the boat and that he managed to direct the sinking craft towards a fishing boat, helping to save those who survived.

Mr Bah was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison after being convicted of manslaughter and related charges.

His application for permission to appeal was refused in December last year.

Speaking about his imprisonment, Mr Bah said: “I am not the guy they think I am. I came here because I had problems in my country and I know this country can help. 

“The place they put me in is not a good place. I am losing my mind.”

A member of the Free Ibrahima Bah Campaign, one of the groups that organised the vigil, said: “Ibrahima’s case is an acute example of how the UK’s immigration and criminal systems oppress racialised people, particularly young black men. 

“The deaths in the Channel are the direct result of the UK’s own border policies that force people into taking dangerous journeys to seek safety, fleeing war, persecution and hardship caused by Western imperialism.”

They said that Mr Bah “just wanted to seek a safer, better life,” adding: “Yet he was unjustly criminalised and handed a lengthy sentence, despite his actions actually saving people’s lives. 

“We call on the government to overturn his unjust conviction and to end the criminalisation and imprisonment of people seeking safety and people of conscience acting in solidarity with migrants and oppressed people everywhere.”