In the same line of thought....
time.com
Excerpt:
The sheer scale of the migrant phenomenon has taken everyone by surprise. The center in Sangatte was originally set up to deal with 250 Kosovars who were camping out in a Calais park. Yet since it opened in September 1999, the building has accommodated a staggering 34,000 people - the Red Cross estimates that nine out of 10 eventually make it through to the U.K. Eurotunnel's security systems were never designed to cope with nightly mass assaults on its perimeter fence, while France never imagined it would have to deal with thousands of passportless migrants massed at the far limit of the Schengen free-transit zone. "Ninety-nine percent of these migrants are illegal and could be convicted under French law," says a representative from a humanitarian organization. "But the migrant streams are simply too big, making the law inapplicable. We'd have to build tens of thousands of prison places."
Instead, hundreds of young men spend their days dozing in dozens of army tents and portable sheds erected inside the vast corrugated steel hangar at Sangatte. An endless food-line snakes away from the makeshift canteen. The air smells of disinfectant and bodies. Abasin, 30, is sitting on a camp bed in the doorway of his tent wearing a white T shirt, cream slacks and trendy suede running shoes. He left Afghanistan three months ago and has been in Sangatte three weeks, after traveling through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece and Italy. "Every stage was organized," he explains. "I paid $13,000 to get to England. There's a place in Peshawar called Khyber Bazaar with hundreds of travel agents. Officially they're selling air tickets, but in fact they can arrange anything."
Since Eurotunnel and the port in Calais began cracking down on stowaways this year, however, it has become more difficult for the travel agents to get their customers through to the destination they most commonly hype, Britain. Habib - another young Afghan - is sitting on a concrete block outside the hangar looking dejected. "Every day I spend here is a day in prison," he says. "So you go off to the tunnel and try your luck. I went there with a friend three days ago and he got through. He was lucky. I'm just waiting for my chance." As he speaks, young men have started leaving the center and making their way up the road to the hole in the fence by the motorway, hoping that tonight they'll be the lucky ones.
____________________ |
