EUROPE-MIGRANTS/CALAIS Fear hits Calais camp after migrant killed by freight train overnight

Record ID: 134710

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/CALAIS Fear hits Calais camp after migrant killed by freight train overnight
  • Date: 16th October 2015
  • Summary: CALAIS, FRANCE (OCTOBER 16, 2015) (REUTERS) MIGRANT CAMP MIGRANT BRUSHING TEETH VARIOUS OF SUDANESE MIGRANT, MOUSSA SHOES (SOUNDBITE) (English) SUDANESE MIGRANT, MOUSSA, SAYING: "It is so difficult to cross the train station and get to England, it is so dangerous, you can lose your life, these are a lot of reasons to let me, so I decided to stay here in France."
  • Embargoed: 31st October 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4Z82SZA6PL2CXP7UQS1KCXQ8N
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Migrants in a Calais camp said they are saddened by the news of a migrant being killed by a freight train during the night of Thursday (October 15) to Friday in the Channel tunnel.
    The body was found by firefighters alongside a train platform in Coquelles, northern France. The force of the impact made it immediately impossible to identify the victim's sex, age or nationality.
    This most recent victim has raised the death toll among people trying to reach Britain to 16 since June.
    Moussa, a Sudanese migrant, left his whole family back in Darfur and completed the dangerous journey to Calais his own.
    He said he has tried three times to reach the UK by train, but finally the dangers forced him to give up and stay in France. He has been in the Calais camp for two months.
    "It is so difficult to cross the train station and get to England, it is so dangerous, you can lose your life, these are a lot of reasons to let me, so I decided to stay here in France," Moussa said.
    Thousands fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East live in a so-called "jungle" of camps in Calais and have tried repeatedly to enter Britain by jumping onto lorries, hiding on trains and walking through the tunnel in the hope of better lives there than in continental Europe.
    Another Sudanese migrant, Muhammad, has been living in Calais for four months, since the beginning of Ramadan.
    He said that while it's true that the dangers of crossing to England scare him, he is determined to make it at any cost.
    "For me, if I hear someone is injured or has died, I am very scared, I am very scared, I have to be very careful for my life. So if I hear this news I am very shocked, I am not happy to hear that. We ran from violence, from dying, from killing from our country to here. Why all this again? So sometimes when I hear that I'm not happy," he said.
    Aziz, a Pakistani migrant living in the camp, served in the air force for 18 years and hopes to go to the UK soon, despite colder temperatures on the way.
    "It doesn't bother (me) if it is raining, there is snow, there is cold. Everybody is doing their best to reach a train station and up into the train and cross the border," Aziz said.
    About 170,000 migrants entered the European Union without the right documents or via illegal entry points in September, the bloc's border agency Frontex said on Tuesday, taking the total for the year so far to 710,000.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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