Pas-de-Calais: last port of hope
For them, the British coast is the last stop on a long journey, and perhaps the start of a new life. But this country of asylum so threatens to fantasize now to push them back to sea. Because the arrival of migrants discredits Boris Johnson’s anti-immigration policy, tensions are mounting between London and Paris. The dismantling of camps and the strengthening of border control measures have not only shifted the problem. From the Belgian border to Boulogne-sur-Mer, the French authorities now have 100 kilometers of coastline to monitor.
At night, they hide among the tall grass of the dunes, somewhere between Calais and Sangatte. A smuggler has just dropped off by car, or guided them on foot from the makeshift camps set up further in the countryside. The sea is rising, the lights of the English coast shine on the horizon. The final destination that the fog plays to make appear or disappear before their tired eyes is only about thirty kilometers away. They dig and unearth an inflatable boat, called a “small boat,” the inflator and motor, a gas can, oars and a few life jackets. Makeshift equipment, often ordered on the Internet and then hidden under tarpaulins covered with sand by a smuggler who pocketed between 1,000 and 5,000 euros per person for organizing the dangerous illegal crossing.
Men, women, sometimes children and even babies; 60% come from Africa, mainly from Sudan, Nigeria, Eritrea and Ethiopia, 30% from the Middle East (Iraq and Iran) and 10% from Afghanistan. Arrived in Calais for a few days, several weeks or long months, determined to reach the Promised Land. A dream that seems close at hand, the last stage of the grueling journey begun in countries that these exiles flee, driven by fear, misery, the hope of finding a finally peaceful life elsewhere.
On board, passengers use their phone’s GPS to find the right direction
After inflating the boat, they run towards the sea, enter the water whose temperature, even in August, does not exceed 18 ° C. If there are children, they are first installed in the center of the boat, with their mothers. Then the men, including the one who acts as coxswain. Bereft of maritime knowledge and often in excess – there are sometimes 30 on board – passengers use their phone’s GPS to find the right direction. But the wind, the currents, the swells and the frequentation of this Channel Strait, where 400 ships cross each day, come the perilous navigation, the waterways and the shipwrecks. The objective: to reach at least British territorial waters, where the English maritime authorities take charge of them up to the port of Dover.
Arman left Afghanistan a year ago, has been in France for five months and would like to join his family in England. We meet him during a food distribution on the outskirts of Calais. He says he is 14 years old and explains in Dari, translated by a compatriot: “I once tried to cross by sea. The boat sank and we were rescued, I was very afraid. Two women, sitting on the floor, feed their four-year-old children. They come from Eritrea and do not yet know whether they seek asylum in France, where 40% of applications succeed, or continue their journey. “We don’t know if we’ll have enough money to pay for a specific boat,” one of them in English. Near Calais train station, as in other parts of the city, migrants spend the time sitting on benches in parks. After years of cohabitation, Calais residents no longer seem to notice the presence of these miserable-looking men and women, whose number has fluctuated between 900 and 1,500 since the beginning of the summer.
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There we can study and work
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Abdallah and Habib, 22, from Darfur, Sudan, also express their desire to reach the other side. They have in mind a chimerical England: “Over there, they imagine, nobody sleeps in the street. And there is no identity check, we can study and work. The absence of a national identity card in the United Kingdom makes them presume, in fact, that it will be easier for them to find a job without being checked.
At sea, every morning from 5 a.m., a CRS crew from the specialized means section runs along the French coast. Its missions: intercept migrant boats, encourage them to turn back, rescue those who have been shipwrecked or are about to capsize, dissuade those who have not yet left the beach and, sometimes, accompany the canoes that hold the sea. sea to English waters. The police communicate by radio with the regional operational surveillance and rescue center (Cross), which, as needed, sends additional aid, maritime gendarmerie, national navy or rescuers at sea (SNSM). “We do not approach the canoes that we meet at sea,” explains Commissioner Laurent Hurst. The smugglers are not on board. And our priority at sea being safety, we must not create problems. We therefore stay close by and we do not take on board only in case of immediate danger. »Maritime law gives priority to the safeguarding of human life and, in this zone, precarious boats are considered in distress as soon as they leave the coast.
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At sea, I have only one mission, the rescue
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On land, intercepted migrants are handed over to the border police. Their rights must then be notified within four hours, in a language they know; but the difficulty in finding interpreters often obliges the police to release the interpreters without being able to verify their identity. An experienced CRS confides: “We see children, pregnant women. It breaks your heart. At sea, I have only one mission, rescue. »Based in Calais for two decades, the man has always known missions linked to migratory crises: near the Channel Tunnel, in the jungles of Sangatte, Calais and Grande-Synthe, now on the sea. He continues to love his job: “Even if I have the impression of emptying the ocean with a teaspoon, I continue to believe that the work of the police makes it possible to limit overflows. “
Between January 1 and August 31, 2021, the Manche maritime prefecture recorded more than 665 operations linked to crossings involving around 15,392 migrants, figures which have increased compared to previous years (only 23 in 2016). Because the sea is the last potential passage for those who want to try their luck across the Channel. The land route, which is taken by entering the back of heavy goods vehicles traveling between France and the United Kingdom, has become too closely watched to allow the success of the desperate who, sometimes, were found refrigerated in the rooms. cold. Commissioner Potel, from the central police station in Calais, ensures that one in two crossing attempts is intercepted by her men. “Our goal is to keep the situation at a bearable level. We will not resolve it, we have to live with it, ”she resigned herself.
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It’s our job to stop them, but we don’t get used to it
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Faced with the mistrust of NGO volunteers, who accuse the police of violent behavior towards migrants, she replies that the use of force is legal. It notes an increase in interethnic brawls, due to the difficult living conditions in the street, as well as aggressive gestures towards the police when some want to recover confiscated navigation equipment. In support of operations at sea, twenty of its police officers spend their nights on the beach. From 6 p.m. to 5 a.m., they roam the dunes between Calais and Sangatte. Thermal imaging glasses allow them to distinguish in the dark from the presence of individuals who are about to set out to sea and whom they are trying to intercept. Olivier, peacekeeper, 40 years old, with years of experience in Calais, assures us: “They continue to want to pass. It’s our job to stop them, but we don’t get used to it. Faces of desperate men and women mark his memory. He tells of their distress, and his own sadness when he sees children who have fallen into the sea tremble with cold and fear.
Another experienced fellow and another link in the chain, the president of the SNSM of Calais, Bernard Barron, a crew member on an “all-weather canoe”, has been frequently woken up at night since June by phone calls from the Cross. In fifteen minutes, his crew must be out of the port to be as quickly as possible on the site of the sinking. The rescuers, called upon for the most serious cases, find themselves facing “migrants in absolute distress, shocked, hypothermic, but who sometimes do not want to come on board because they know that they are being brought back to France. “. Since the beginning of this year, one dead has been found at sea; nine had been counted in 2020. Figures that astonish Bernard Barron: “With the traffic that there is in the strait, the poor visibility of tugs, ferries and tankers, it is believed that there must be boats struck. and bodies that cannot be found. “
Britain’s Secretary of State for the Interior threatened to push back migrants into the open sea
His anger, as well as that of the police and associations, targets those who exploit the misery of these unfortunate people. The smugglers, organized in international mafia networks, are difficult to identify. Their leaders operate from Paris, London or Brussels and send their lieutenants there. They recruit from among the migrants those responsible for driving the candidates to the beaches and procuring the inflatable boats. The investigations for the dismantling of these networks are long and the traffic being very lucrative, the criminals arrested are immediately replaced by others.
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Open borders, establish a legal access route, distribute temporary visas, distribute exiles according to the wealth of each European country, increase accommodation capacities, these are the solutions proposed by associations, especially those from the Migrants Hostel. François Guennoc, its president for eight years, seems discouraged. He denounces a hardening of policies and political decisions, accentuated by recent statements by Priti Patel, the British Secretary of State for the Interior, who threatens to push back migrants on the high seas.
Also read.Migrants: the hellish journey
On September 8, this Conservative Party politician won a review of Britain’s interpretation of international maritime law, to allow border forces to push back canoes before they reached their target. An “inhuman” and “illegal” measure, denounced by associations, contested by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and difficult to apply in view of the precariousness of “small boats” and the risks incurred at sea. In Calais, On the outskirts of a camp, a young Iraqi throws fearlessly, as if to answer him: “I have already sunk once, but I will do it again, until I am successful.” “
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