For the past two months, Sattar, 22, has been living in a ditch 30 miles (48km) inland from Calais, attempting to return to Reading, where he spent nine years of his life, studied for his GCSEs and earned distinctions in a college course in business, travel and tourism, reports The Guardian.
The ditch where he was sheltering last week is so well hidden behind blackberry bushes, in a dip between two fields, that most people in the nearby village are unaware it is home to about 25 Afghans. Most of the refugees are new arrivals in Europe, fleeing instability in Afghanistan in the hope of finding jobs and security in Britain. Some, like Sattar, are making the journey for a second time, caught up in the labyrinthine complexities of the UK immigration system.
With Calais authorities declaring the refugee camp closed this week, and demolition crews bulldozing the remaining shacks on the sandy wasteland, the crisis has not been solved, merely shifted to other locations. Clusters of refugees remain hidden from authorities across northern France, determined to continue their attempts to reach the UK.
Sattar arrived in Britain as a 13-year-old refugee sent across Europe by his parents, away from Taliban-related violence in Afghanistan’s Logar province. He was given discretionary leave to remain and settled with a foster family, whom he loved and who supported him through the considerable difficulties of going to secondary school without speaking English.
He worked hard at Chiltern Edge school in Oxfordshire, where he says he received extra lessons in English, got through his GCSEs and passed his BTecs with distinction. But when Sattar reached 17-and-a-half, at which age the government routinely reviews longer term applications to remain, officials ruled that since Kabul was relatively safe, he would be fine to return home.
“The judge told me ‘You have GCSEs, you are educated, you will easily find a job there’,” he said. By the time the decision was made, Sattar had been in the UK for six years, spoke the language flawlessly and felt English. His family in Afghanistan told him it would not be safe to return home, so he appealed the judgment, but was rejected and obliged to leave Britain.
He briefly went to Italy, where he was shocked to see refugees sleeping in railway stations, before returning to France, determined to get back to the UK and launch a fresh appeal. He has settled in a tent in this muddy gully in rural France so he can make nightly attempts to get on UK-bound lorries parked next to the motorway nearby.