CALAIS, France (AP) — Mohammad and Jaber spend every day looking for the right truck, and this afternoon it feels like it could happen.
This truck seems right. They scream to their friend to jump. He runs, latches onto the moving rig between the cab and the cargo compartment, and squeezes in. The truck doesn’t stop, meaning the driver hasn’t noticed.
The truck and its stowaway then disappear down a French highway toward the English Channel tunnel, the man’s friends hoping he makes it to his destination: Britain.
Mohammad and Jaber are young Sudanese refugees who escaped war in their country, endured kidnappings or beatings in Libya, and crossed the deadly Mediterranean to Italy.
They are in the northern French town of Calais, and like hundreds of other people mostly from East Africa and the Middle East, they are trying to get to Britain by hiding in trucks in what has proved to be a dangerous and potentially lethal method.
Politicians on both sides of the English Channel are arguing about how to make them stop, after thousands of people crossed into Britain by various means in recent months in a flow that has been met with heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric.
While those with some money can pay to go to Britain on flimsy, overcrowded boats in often dangerous waters, the ones who can’t have to jump on one of the tens of thousands of commercial trucks that pass each week between France and Britain.
Many of the migrants in Calais want to reach the UK in search of economic opportunity or because of family and community ties. French authorities said another big draw is lax British rules toward migrants without residency papers.
The truck drivers check to see no one enters their rigs, or stop to tell would-be stowaways they’re not going to Britain and there’s no point in climbing aboard. Police in patrol cars come by often, too, their sirens blaring, to deter the men.
Once aboard a rig, the jumpers pay close attention to the truck’s route. Only one sequence of left and right turns will lead them to the promised land across the Channel. If the combination is the wrong one, they get off and start over again.
Mohammad twice managed to get on a truck unnoticed but had to jump off when he realized it was not going to the UK.
Some ride in the space between the cab and the cargo. Some climb into the cargo compartment if they can pry the doors open.