Two weeks ago, Haile from Ethiopia managed to smuggle his wife and two children on to a truck waiting at the French port city of Calais to board a ferry to England, reports The Financial Times.
“The driver did not see us. But I had to stay behind to shut the door of the truck. They are in Liverpool now,” he said.
Haile, who says he paid $10,000 to people traffickers to take his family to England, was left as one of hundreds of migrants from Africa, the Middle East and beyond living in miserable conditions in and around Calais in one of the starkest examples of the mounting pressure of immigration in Europe.
On Wednesday, French police moved in to clear a makeshift camp housing some 500 migrants at a food distribution point close to Calais port, where they had been squatting since the authorities bulldozed three previous camps in May.
The migrants are offered alternative accommodation away from Calais, but most prefer to stay where they can continue to try to cross the English Channel, with many living in nearby sand dunes in an area referred to as “the jungle”.
Of the thousands who arrive annually in Europe from across the Mediterranean Sea or via central Asia, many make their way to Calais with one objective: to reach the UK, visible 30km across the channel, where they believe they will find jobs more easily than elsewhere.
Calais has been struggling to cope with the problem for 15 years. But in recent months, the numbers of migrants has risen sharply, fuelled by conflicts in Syria and east Africa. Local officials say there are about 800 migrants in the Calais area, compared with 200-300 two years ago.
Read more of this report from The Financial Times.