Some 1200 migrants are stranded in Calais, north of France, hoping to cross the channel to the UK where they think they can get a brighter future. Most fled war and dictatorship. Two of them, at the condition we hid their identity, told euronews of the ordeal they went through to get to Europe, where their expectations were shattered.
Migrant 1
“We have troubles in our countries. We support or we oppose the politicians. If I support the politicians I stay like a dog. If you have a special ideology to oppose dictators, we are prisoners. In my country I was in prison. The prison is very..bad. no justice. Without judgment, I stay more than 3, 4 months. If I stayed there, I’d be in jail, I’d be tortured, they wouldl do bad things to my body, abuse me. So I chose to stay human and go outside. That is why I left my motherland. I have a family, I had work, but that doesn’t matter. I need freedom. I am a freedom fighter that is why I left my motherland.”
Migrant 2
I come from East Africa. I came through the Sahara desert; after I that I went to Libya, then to Italy.. When we crossed Soudan there were problems. Then in Libya it was very very hard. I’m christian, they don’t like christians, if they see a cross around your neck, or a cross tattoo on your body, they kill you. I don’t have a tattoo, that’s what saved me.
I removed my cross from my neck because I didn’t want to die. They don’t want to see that, or they kill a lot of people there. To reach Libya it was very hard, many people died before they got there. Because the Sahara desert is very difficult, very dangerous. No food, no drink. Even the dealers they don’t allow you to have a lot of water. Because they want to take care of their car. They don’t want a lot of things to make it heavy. That’s why even if you have a lot of water they don’t allow for that. They throw it out. And after, you’re left with 2, 3 liters of water. Many people die because of lack of water, thirst.. When we reach there also we face a lot of problems When I got to Libya there was a civil war there. The same thing as in my country.. Africa needs good governance. That’s why we flee from our country. And when we arrive there nobody wanted to help us. They wanted to kill us. Many people died in that event, maybe you know about Lybia. It’s fine for them to kill someone, for them it’s easy. Sometimes they called us and said: “does anyone want to die ?” With a gun pointed, like that. “Who hates this life?” Some people said “yes, me”. And they died, in front of my eyes. There was a lot of torture. Sometimes they put a person in front of them, they talked and they just shoot. Like a game. We faced many threats and a lot of problems. I don’t want to remember that. But many of my friends are dead. In these very difficult conditions when we crossed and when we arrived in Europe, we had good expectations. We saw so many migrant camps.And then people reach the Mediterranean sea. And sometimes in front of rescue teams, many people dies. I’ve seen that. Yes. And I lost many of my friends, and my brothers. And what makes me feel very bad, is that when we reached here, we had a good image of European people and European countries. Sometimes, we have great expectations, of good politics, justice, and humanity.But some people when they come here .. Our life is not even like that of a dog.
What I would like to tell you is that these people, all migrants, they have potential. They are talented, they are skilled. some of us we don’t have any education maybe. But we can be manpower. The manpower has a good effect on the economy. Now many european countries their economies are not good and it’s not going well, going up. It’s going down, because of their greediness. They’re greedy they don’t want to share. They don’t want to give jobs, that’s why there is no job here. If they share with others they can be more productive, and they can benefit from that. It’s like win -win. If we hold eachother. Some people I have seen when we come to the sea, some people they held eachother’s hand, and they didn’t sink. You know. They didn’t sink to the deep and they saved themselved. It’s the same. If we hold eachother we can. But if we are pushing eachother, maybe we’ll sink together.”
Migrant 1
“The european people they pay taxes. The european governements collect money, they support dictators. When the dictators get more power, the people go outside, they come here. For freedom. But if I have freedoms..I have a good profession in my country. I am a teacher. Teaching in college and private schools. I had a good income. But I was in prison. Because I oppose the dictators. When the european governments stop supporting the dictators, we stay there, we can work together. But the european politicians, the british, the americans, the french, the german government, they support dictators! They give guns! They give money! Why ? We don’t have guns! When they support us, as we are freedom fighters, we can make a good government. Freedom and justice, we can stay there. I always criticise the european politicians because they don’t care about our freedoms. And our lives. If they had more concern for our lives, they could stop to support the dictators. They can stop to work with dictators! They work with dictators, we are freedom fighters, so we come here. So the solution is to stop. If the europeans don’t want more migrants, they should stop to work with dictators. That is the best solution.”