Emigres' Europe dreams in chains

As darkness begins descending on the French port of Calais, Naseer Ahmad, 17, sidles out of his hovel hidden amid thorny bushes in a jungle and heads towards the mouth of Le tunnel sous la Manche, the rail tunnel beneath the English Channel that connects France and England.

Ahmad makes his way along roads and across fields, crosses high fences and razor wire and sneaks past floodlights and police patrols.

When he gets to the tracks, he tries to jump aboard freight or passenger trains headed down the tunnel.

The lanky young Afghan has been trying to smuggle himself into England in this manner for over a year.

“Life in England is a dream,'' he says. “After coming so far, I won't give up.''

Ahmad arrived in Calais a year ago after a perilous 5,630-kilometre journey from southern Afghanistan's war-torn Helmand province.

He covered the distance partly on foot and partly hidden in cargo containers or in rickety boats.

He was guided all along by fly-by-night agents who helped migrants such as himself to evade arrest and smuggled them to foreign shores for a hefty fee.

Launchpad to ‘El Dorado'

Ahmad is one of the hundreds of illegal migrants from war-ravaged countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia who seek sanctuary in Calais, hoping to sneak into England.

Many take great risks to achieve their goal. Some try clambering on to the Eurostar trains that travel at speeds of up to 160km/h. Others hide in refrigerated cargo containers.

Many die during the dangerous passage, killed by the electrified rail or suffocating in the containers.

“England is like their El Dorado, their paradise where all things are good,'' says Nazanine Nozarian, a specialist on migrants with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Calais. “They're ignorant people.''

Nozarian spends a good part of her time counselling the migrants, making them aware of immigration laws in the United Kingdom and the perils of trying to go there illegally.

Illegal immigrants are a gargantuan problem in Europe. The European Commission estimates that there are nearly 8 million illegal immigrants in the European Union.

More than 200,000 were arrested in the EU in the first half of 2007 and about 90,000 have been expelled.

Experts say the problem is expected to worsen as war-ravaged countries continue to disgorge more migrants who resort to desperate measures to get to Europe's shores in search of a haven and better economic prospects.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of refugees worldwide has grown for the second year in a row this year to 11.4 million.

Conflicts and deteriorating security in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea have resulted in this increase.

The number of people internally displaced in such countries has also risen from 24.4 million in 2007 to 26 million this year.

“Countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan are the major refugee generators,'' says Jean-Philippe Chauzy, the head of media and public information at IOM.

Sensitivity to immigration is running particularly high across the European Union, as increasing waves of the poor and dispossessed from Africa, the Middle East and Asia resort to increasingly desperate measures to reach the perceived goal of a better life.

But the European Union is tightening the noose on immigrants. Under a new law passed in July, the European Parliament has approved tough rules for expelling undocumented immigrants.

Among them is a provision allowing member-nations to keep these migrants in detention centres for up to 18 months.

Foreigners who have been forcibly deported also face a five-year ban on re-entering the European Union.

This includes families and unaccompanied children, though EU nations are urged to detain minors only as a “last resort''.
The revised period of detention is longer than what was previously stipulated in 18 of the 27 EU states.

In France, for instance, illegal immigrants could be detained only for 32 days while Hungary had a one-year cap and Spain 40 days.

The new EU directive is part of a wide-ranging package of policies under negotiation in the EU that aim to create a common European approach to immigration.

Before this the EU, which allows freedom of movement within its 25 Schengen states, had no overarching policy on immigration.

Many EU members view the new law as a means to unify a patchwork of systems governing treatment of migrants who overstay their visas or slip across its borders.

The supporters contend that the rules were needed to give weight to immigration laws.

“Europe has made it clear that it is not tolerating any form of illegal status,'' French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

“Europe does not have the means to welcome with dignity all those who see an El Dorado in it.''

France has vowed to make illegal immigration a key focus of its EU presidency, which began on July 1.

Among the measures it hopes to see the European Parliament approve are sanctions on companies that employ undocumented immigrants.

Human rights groups, however, have cried foul. Amnesty International has described the new policy, which is part of a widespread anti-immigrant backlash, as “severely flawed''.

Besides France, migrants are becoming a contentious issue in other EU countries as well and politicians are eager to cash in on it.

In June Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who blames immigrants for Italy's soaring crime rates, proposed a raft of measures — among them a law that would make entering Italy without permission a crime punishable by up to four years in prison. Berlusconi's popularity rating shot up by 17 points, to 50 per cent, after he unveiled his anti-immigration plans.

“It'll put a lot of pressure on migrants,'' says Philippe Chauzy from the IOM. “It'll increase their desperation.''

Bjarte Vandvik, the secretary-general of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), says the extended detention period is tantamount to treating migrants as criminals.

Earlier, EU countries dealt with migrants by placing them in the 224 detention centres spread across the bloc, which had a capacity to hold more than 30,870 people. Cimade, the only French NGO authorised to work in the 23 detention centres in France, fears that the new directive will encourage countries with shorter periods for detention, such as France, to extend them.

In a statement, Cimade said it deplored the passage of what civil liberties groups have called “the directive of shame'' and said it was studying the possibility of contesting it before the EU Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights.

However, France is firm on the issue. Its immigration minister, Brice Hortefeux, feels the new directive will probably encourage more undocumented migrants in Calais to consider the option for voluntary return assistance.

He recently stated that a record number of undocumented migrants (38 per cent) had opted for voluntary return during the first five months of 2008.

There are an estimated 1,300 illegal immigrants hoping to sneak into Britain, living on the streets of Calais. According to the IOM, government figures show that 29,729 undocumented migrants were expelled from France between June 2007 and May 2008.

France says it hopes to stanch illegal immigration and attract mainly skilled labour from developing countries to Europe, hoping to compete with America's Green Card system.

The EU recently backed a fast-track scheme called the “European pact on immigration and asylum'' in which the bloc pledged to boost the fight against illegal immigration while promoting legal immigration and a common asylum policy.

The European Union wants to be more competitive in a battle with other Western states for technology workers and hospital staff from the developing world, increasingly needed to plug labour gaps.

“There is agreement in principle about [the scheme],'' German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

This scheme would offer Blue Cards to skilled labourers, which will ensure that candidates get work permits fast, make it easier for them to find public housing and acquire long-term resident status, and facilitate their families to join them.

Foreign, highly skilled workers make up 1.72 per cent of the migrant workforce in the EU, against 9.9 per cent in Australia and 3.2 per cent in the United States.

Hortefeux said the only question was when the Blue Card system would begin, adding that he expected the scheme to be approved by the end of the year.

With this legislation, EU states have also agreed to expel more illegal immigrants and not to carry out mass regularisation of illegal migrants but rather to proceed on a case-by-case basis.

But how would the new legislation staunch the flow of illegal migrants?

Experts say the problem won't be solved easily, legislation or no legislation.

For years, illegal migrants have been known to use Le tunnel sous la Manche to attempt to enter Britain.

They have been taking greater and greater risks, jumping on to trains from bridges or running along the tracks leading down the tunnel.

Sneaking past security

The tunnel, also known as the Channel Tunnel, is the second-longest undersea tunnel in the world after Japan's Seikan Tunnel and carries high-speed passenger railway services, vehicle transport and international freight trains.

Most migrants who get to Britain find some way to ride either a freight train or a Eurostar passenger train.

Though these facilities are fenced, airtight security is deemed impossible as refugees even jump from bridges on to moving trains.

In several incidents people are injured while attempting the crossing. Others tamper with railway equipment, causing delays and damage that require repairs.

Eurotunnel says it has lost up to £5 million a month because of the problem.

By 1997, the problem had already attracted international press attention and the French Red Cross opened a refugee centre at Sangatte.

The camp was opened in September 1999 after a few hundred illegal immigrants trying to make the crossing were found sleeping without food or shelter in fields or beside roads.

The camp was opened in a Eurotunnel warehouse that had housed construction materials and supplies during the building of the tunnel.

It attracted thousands of immigrants from all over the world.
The camp became something of a magnet for illegal migrants, a place to get a bed, three meals a day and the latest information on the best routes across the Channel.

By 2002, it housed up to 1,500 persons at a time, most of them trying to get to the United Kingdom. Illegal immigrants from countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan streamed out of the camp every night towards the tunnel.

Local police said migrants were responsible for many “urban disturbances'' and that they were facing difficulties in coping with the growing menace.

Politicians have lobbied for the seemingly notorious centre at Sangatte to be closed because it acted as a kind of departure lounge for illegal immigration into England.

In 2002, it was shut down by the French government. And the security around the tunnel was beefed up.

A double fence was built at a cost of £5 million. Eurotunnel, which has put about 23 kilometres of razor wire around its 1,250-acre compound, began carrying out carbon dioxide checks on all lorries. Other measures included CCTV cameras and increased 24-hour police patrols.

Complex problem

These measures did reduce the number of refugees reaching Britain but it hasn't solved the problem.

Despite the strict security and closing down of the Sangatte camp in 2002, many immigrants today try to get through the tunnel almost every day, undeterred by the dangers.

“In fact, the closing of Sangatte has only increased the geographic spread of migrants,'' an aid worker in Calais said.
“Earlier they were confined to Sangatte and were easier to control, but now they've spread to all over northern France.''

Sarkozy has pledged that another Sangatte will not be built and has reacted to the refugee problem with increasingly heavy-handed policing.

However, despite the policing, the dangerous game for a good life begins after dark every day for refugees such as Ahmad.

Two months ago, he nearly fell off a fast-moving freight train headed for England.

A sharp pain still wrenches his leg every time he tries to sprint.

But he says his cousin, also from Helmand, managed to sneak into England three months ago, clinging to the axle connecting the rear wheels of a truck.

“Inshallah, I will also manage to go there some day,'' he says.
A local NGO feeds Ahmad and other migrants twice a day, bathes him once a week and regularly counsels him but he hasn't changed his mind about trying to cross over to England.

He lives a precarious existence, a wretched life in a jungle on the fringes of Calais.

A cloying odour of decay emanates from the trash-strewn surroundings.

Every time he hears footsteps through the jungle's thorny bushes, Ahmad is forced to flee his hut.

His life is in limbo but despite the risks, he says, he will not return.

Back home in Afghanistan, he says, there is only unremitting gloom that he cannot return to. “There are no opportunities there,'' he says. “Only war.''

Anuj Chopra is an independent writer based in India.