More
than 2,000 people are now crowded in, most of them desperate to reach the UK.
Meanwhile,
the deputy mayor of the port wants the French border moved to Dover for one
month – to make the British understand the sheer scale of the problem faced by
his town every day.
There
is such alarm at the growing numbers of migrants using Calais as a base to
make a bolt across the Channel that a Home Office source said “physical
security has been increased and beefed up”.
The
tent city is home to those from countries including Syria, Sudan, Iran,
Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.
Many
fight to stow away on lorries bound for Britain each night. French officials
say the town is overrun because the UK is a land where the penniless could
“live like kings”.
The
word about easy-to-obtain benefits and “paradise” conditions for migrant
families has spread to the world’s poorest countries. It is estimated there
have been 12,000 attempts to cross the UK border via Calais in the past year.
The
lure of a new life across the Channel has seen families live in unimaginable
squalor at the camp in woods near the port. Numbers are swelling by the day.
“Why
is England so attractive for migrants? In their original countries people are
saying that if you go to England you will have everything – a house, money, a
job; your family will be able to join you. Right or wrong, it is what is said.
They might leave with three pounds but, when they arrive in England they can
make £50-a-week on the black market, so they are happy – they are kings.
“The
bottleneck here is caused because England is too attractive, too easy. They
have nothing to lose – except their lives.”
Inside
the camp, men, women and malnourished children live on top of each other in
tarpaulin tents with no running water.
The
clamour for the front of the queue when the nightly scramble begins to sneak on
to lorries bound for England means violent clashes often erupt.
Comment:
We need to secure our borders, and if people want to come and live here, they must be willing to work and integrate into society, rather than expecting a life of freebies
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