Thirty-year-old Guo Binglong was one of the 19 Chinese migrants who died gathering cockles in Morecambe Bay last Thursday. Louisa Lim reports from Fujian province in southern China on how his family have been coping with their loss.  The family wants compensation from the UK government |
A mother sobs for her son, lost to the seas in a distant land.
She wails and chants, rocking her body rhythmically.
The Guo family has been mourning Binglong since his last, heart-rending phone call as the tides swirled around his chest.
His father, Guo Keshu describes what happened.
"He called us and said: 'The water is very dangerous. I'm going to die.' And then he hung up.
"The whole family started to cry, and none of us has eaten since."
Guo Binglong's 27-year-old wife is almost catatonic, stony-eyed with grief.
His two young children, aged five and two, are too young to understand that their father is never returning.
The family believes the British government bears some responsibility for the deaths, and it is seeking compensation.
"We want the British government to support us," cries his mother, Si Aizhu. "We want them to settle this fairly."
They also want Binglong's body returned home, so they can see him one last time.
They are bitter at his death.
"We blame his bosses," his father says. "Their hearts are black. They don't care whether people live or die."
The tragedy leaves the Guo family with major financial problems.
Binglong was the main breadwinner, and his income supported his elderly, ailing parents and two brothers.
The family borrowed �20,000 for his passage to England last year.
 Guo Binglong's dream was to buy a better life for his family |
Without his wage, their combined annual income is less than �1,000.
They do not know how they will repay the debt.
Binglong's dream was to buy his family a better life.
In order to achieve it, he made a perilous seven-month journey to the United Kingdom.
And he was not the only one. His village, Zelang, lost two other young men that night in Morecambe Bay.
Mo Kaizhi, Zelang's pastor, says that it is a sign that illegal migration has almost become part of the culture.
"Many of the people who go overseas are from families in financial trouble," he says.
Foreign toil
"Their businesses have gone under, or they are in debt. They are forced into it."
And those migrants have left their mark on the landscape.
Construction projects dot the hills - ornate mansions and tiled villas with curlicued gates.
Almost all of them have been funded by years of foreign toil.
As coastal dwellers, people from Fujian province have traditionally travelled overseas seeking work.
However, opinion is turning against the people smugglers.
In the past, they were seen as offering a service to those with no legal means of leaving.
But the mood changed four years ago when 58 Fujianese suffocated in a container in Dover.
One young man we meet says going to the west is not the way out.
"A lot of my friends have gone," he says. "I don't want to go, though, because working overseas is no better than working here.
"The economy is developing, so there is no reason to work illegally overseas."
Back at the Guo family house, it is too late for such realisations.
Their prospects have died with their son, who gambled his present for an unknown future in a far-off land.
Binglong and 18 others paid for that decision with their lives.
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We want the British government to support us. We want them to settle this fairly 
