‘I’ve have tried to get into trucks a 100 times.’ Amir Gul from Afghanistan tells the Telegraph ‘The police or drivers always throw me off and sometimes they beat me. But I will not stop until I reach London, unless I am killed trying, even if it takes me a year.’
Why the UK? Two Eritrean men who are staying in a refugee camp in Calais explain their desire to go t the UK to flexmens.org: ‘No one gives us work here in France. No one wants us here. At least in the UK we have a big group of our people; our communities; they help us with work and find a place to live. And none of us speak French.'
Hopping on a truck
Mohammed Aslam has come all the way from Afghanistan and is now only 40 kilometers away from his dream destination. He explains to the London Evening Standard how he tries to enter the UK: ‘We wait on the side of the road and when it is dark, we climb under the tarpaulins of the trucks, but,’ he laughs, ‘we have no idea whether they're going to Belgium, England or France.’ Although he hasn’t succeeded so far, he won’t give up: ‘I will never ever go back. I have nothing to lose. My only worry is that I catch the wrong truck and end up’ — he wriggles his nose in disgust — ‘in Belgium.’
©Telegraph.co.ukGetting on a truck seems to be a popular way to get to the UK. You can pay a smuggler or try it yourself: some run op to a truck while it is driving, try to open it and hop on. If the driver notices, he will accelerate and sway over the road. Others try their luck through the underbelly of the truck and cling to the ledge that connects the wheels.
Freezer truck
The key is to not get caught. Some people take risks when they try to trick the border control gadgets: they wrap their head in plastic bags so their heat and breath won’t be detected. This is pretty drastic but people try anything. One boy tells Flexmen.org that he sat inside a freezer truck one morning for 6 hours. ‘The oxygen in the truck finished and I was choking. When some friends opened the door by chance they saw me all blue and rushed me to the hospital where I was given electric shock. Now I’m fine again, I will eat, sleep a little and try to find a safer way.’
People won't give up their promised land that easy. The heartbeat detectors, CO2 measurement tools and sniffer dogs may catch more people but certainly won't stop fortune seekers from trying.
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