- Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/CALAIS CAMP Migrant describes Calais camp "hell"
- Date: 30th July 2015
- Summary: CALAIS, FRANCE (JULY 30, 2015) (REUTERS) MIGRANT SITTING ON WALL, MIGRANTS WALKING BY SIGN FOR CALAIS TENTS IN MAKESHIFT MIGRANT CAMP KNOWN AS "THE JUNGLE" VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS IN CAMP MIGRANT WASHING HIS FACE WITH WATER FROM TAP VARIOUS OF MAKESHIFT CHURCH BUILT BY MIGRANT COMMUNITY AND CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS IN CAMP MIGRANTS PRAYING INSIDE CHURCH MIGRANTS IN CAMP TENT (SO
- Embargoed: 14th August 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA4QX55W6XUY087L8WORB2Q8Z2B
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A makeshift migrant camp in Calais, known as "The Jungle", is the home to some 3,000 men, women and young children hoping to one day cross the Channel and reach Britain in search of a better life.
The northern French port has become one of the frontlines in Europe's wider migrant crisis alongside Italian and Greek islands used as an entry point for those crossing the Mediterranean from Africa or the Middle East.
Many of the migrants in the camp, who originate from countries such as Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia, took the perilous Mediterranean crossing from Libya, travelling through Europe towards Calais in the hope of reaching Britain's shores.
Migrants such as 29-year-old Mima from Ethiopia view the country as their one hope for a happier future.
"Life in The Jungle is not life. It's just like hell, you know. Like, all the immigrants, people, we're no secret here. But we don't have any facility, so it's not like a life just like a hell," he told Reuters Television.
Mima studied I.T. and journalism, and said he one day hopes to return to Ethiopia to work as a journalist.
His only weekly respite from attempting to cross the Channel comes on a Sunday, which Christian Eritreans and Ethiopians spend praying in a make-shift church within the camp. It took two months to build the church, constructed with the aid of Christian associations.
Mima was one of hundreds cramped on what he described as a plastic boat from Libya to Italy. He was rescued off the coast, saying he only survived as a strong swimmer, losing several friends in the boat journey. Now in Calais, migrants once again risk losing their lives by trying to jump on Eurotunnel trains.
Freight and passenger traffic through the rail tunnel have been severely disrupted in past weeks as migrants desperate to enter Britain have stepped up attempts to board trucks and trains travelling from France.
"I lost my two friends, they are dead on the train station when they are trying," Mima said, before adding: "So, I don't know, I mean, we don't know what we are going to do. I mean like, just you know when we're applying asylum seeker in France, they not accept us, so where we go?"
GPS is used by migrants as a tool to help locate possible weak spots in Eurotunnel fences, Mima said, and they follow the daily timetables of trains to be ready and waiting once they pass.
"If you no catch up the train, already we fall down, that's only our chance, you know. But the others, when you get tired, when you are tired, you wanna go back to the main gates. At that time, the police they are coming by running to attack by spray, and they are using, the police, the spray, and they are carrying some sticks. So when they came to attack us, we are running to protect ourselves," he said.
French police union representative in Calais Gilles Debove told Reuters Television the police response had been stepped up, but acknowledged the site is extremely difficult to contain.
"Here, we have 650 hectares. I know there are three teams to repair fences who work 24 hours a day, who only do that. The perimeter is 23 kilometres long, so there are many weak spots to be opened and entered on the site."
A police officer said the number of migrants trying to enter Britain eased slightly overnight compared to earlier in the week, with about 800 migrants around the site and some 300 intercepted by police. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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