Somali teenager Abdulaziz Ahmad hunkered down in the sand dunes outside Calais, once again plotting how to reach Britain, eight months after French government bulldozers cleared a sprawling migrants’ camp in the northern port town.
In October last year, Ahmad, 17, was rehoused in a reception center in Rennes and began the process of seeking asylum, soon becoming disillusioned with the slow pace of French bureaucracy.
After four months, he gave up.
His days are now spent trying to climb aboard trucks and trains headed across the English Channel and evading riot police armed with batons and tear gas. He has no easy access to running water and relies on charities for food.
Aid agencies and government officials estimate up to 600 migrants have converged on Calais seeking a better life in Britain.
“We know it is dangerous, but we have no other possibility, because France is not giving answers on asylum requests so people come back here,” Ahmad said. “The police here they are very hard on us. Thank God I can run fast, like Usain Bolt.”
His plight highlights how France and the EU are struggling to find a coherent answer to a migration crisis that has tested cooperation between member states.
French President Emmanuel Macron wants France’s asylum process sped up.
Italy, which bears the brunt of migrant arrivals across the Mediterranean, on Wednesday pressed for more help from the EU.
Charity workers in Calais anticipate a surge in the number of migrants from nations like Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Afghanistan during the summer.
There had been an outbreak of scabies among the migrants because living conditions are so dire, charity worker Gael Manzi said.
Macron has promised migrants would be treated humanely, but French Minister of the Interior Gerard Collomb on Friday last week dismissed charities’ call for a new migrant reception center in Calais, saying it would act as a magnet, and that he would deploy extra riot police to contain the influx.
A local court backed the government’s stance, but ruled that local authorities must provide drinking water, toilets and showers.
Calais Mayor Natacha Bouchard said on Twitter that she would file an appeal.
Regional prefect Fabien Sudry also said he was considering an appeal and denied accusations of police violence, saying only one complaint had been submitted to the police so far this year.
Migrants say they are too scared to walk into a police station to file a complaint.
“The police here are after us,” said 17-year-old Eritrean national Robil Teklit, who complained his eyed itched constantly from repeated tear-gassing. “But it’s no worse than in Eritrea.”
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