UN urges UK to restart resettlement of refugees after family drowns in Channel

Scheme designed to resettle about 5,000 refugees a year is currently suspended due to pandemic

The UK government needs to urgently restart its resettlement scheme after two young children and their parents died while trying to cross the Channel, the UN refugee agency's UK representative has said.

Iranian Kurds Rasul Iran Nezhad and his wife, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and two of their children, Anita, nine, and Armin, six, drowned on Tuesday as they tried to reach Britain by boat. The fate of the family's third child, 15-month-old Artin, is unknown.