A migrant in Calais climbs a security fence to get into the port of Calais and into the UK.
It has become a common sight for the people of Calais - men climbing security fences around the port to try and get into the UK. They are the migrants, who emerge each afternoon from makeshift camps to sit near busy road junctions and try their luck as trucks come by heading for the French port, and Britain. That it happens in broad daylight as well as the dead of night is a sign of how brazen, and how desperate, these people have become. But watching it happen can be risky too. I was chased off by men carrying big bits of wood as I tried to photograph. I assume that they were the traffickers who trade in the misery of many of their fellow countrymen. Afghans live in a shanty town growing rapidly out of some scrubby woodland near the lorry parks where truckers from across Europe stop to fill up with fuel and rest before continuing to the UK. Ad hoc international and ethnic boundaries have sprung up across the town of Calais. Afghans live in a desolate place known as "the Jungle", Iraqis have their own encampment not far away. East Africans live in a terrace of derelict buildings in the town centre. The Jungle is a filthy, squalid camp with shacks made from old bits of wood, corrugated iron, plastic sheeting and blankets. Ethnic disputes break out frequently. One man was recently murdered here by someone from another tribe. His friends have built him a memorial made from old breeze blocks. It is estimated that there are about a thousand migrants in Calais, and at the moment they get no help from the French authorities. Charities have stepped in to fill the gap. Every day hundreds of people turn up for the twice-daily handouts of food. Once a week they can collect donated clothes. . In 2002 - under pressure from Britain - the refugee centre at nearby Sangatte was closed and publicly bulldozed. Sangatte had been seen as an official encouragement to migrants to come and have a go at getting into Britain illegally.
Size: 3872px × 2592px
Photo credit: © Trevor Boston / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: agency, asylum, boarder, illegal, immigration, migrant, seeker, uk
