Why do refugees want to come to UK and not stay in France??

[Anthea]

BBC News

The huddled masses besieging Fortress Calais
By Darius Bazargan

Thousands of people are living in makeshift camps in Calais hoping that one day they will make it to the UK. Many once had good jobs - but fleeing from war and persecution most now have no money, and little dignity, in a town that is fed up with them.

"Life in Calais? It's close to animal life. From early morning you're just thinking about food and then, to sleep again.

"You start thinking about basic needs - to take a shower, to take a shave, to cut your hair. And you're just close to animal life."

The speaker is Osman - a gentle, well-educated Sudanese man in his late 20s. He's quietly explaining how his life has been shattered.

"I don't know what to say, I think I lost everything. I am just now on empty. An empty guy, I don't have a plan, I don't know where to go."

It had all started two months earlier, after he was arrested and tortured by the regime in Khartoum for organising political opposition meetings.

Foolishly he'd invited other political activists to his home and a neighbour - a government loyalist - had told the secret police.

After discharging himself from hospital, where he was being treated for injuries sustained during an interrogation, Osman's friends got him a place on a cargo ship heading for France.

He arrived there with nothing and was advised by people he met to head to Calais, and then on to the UK. Getting to the UK, he was told, was the best option for an English-speaker seeking asylum in Europe.

So here he is, living a feral life in a sprawling squatter camp on the outskirts of Calais.

He is not alone. There are thousands of migrants here now. No-one's quite sure how many - 2,000 or 3,000 perhaps.

The numbers are growing daily and all have their hearts set on a new life in the UK, which they appear to believe is a kind of wonderland that will answer all their problems.

But the UK border is closed. The frontier has been physically moved to inside the port of Calais - and what a border it is.

Triple-layer, chain-link fences standing 20ft (6m) high with coils of razor wire running along the top. Security guards, sniffer dogs, electronic heartbeat detectors, squads of heavily-armed CRS riot police, banks of CCTV.

The port of Calais now looks like a throwback to the Cold War - not a border town demarcation between two rich friendly nations which haven't fought each other for more than 200 years.

Link to Full Article & Videos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31008193