The house of despair

A filthy squat in Calais is home to 50 Eritreans who daily try to cross the Channel seeking asylum in Britain. Here are their stories

The first thing you notice is the smell. Sour and rancid, it cuts at the back of your throat; a powerful combination of rotting food, urine and sweat. Next it’s the flies, lots of them, circling in a frenzy. Then, out of the gloom, a pair of eyes emerges, and another – and then the shape of a young man, sleeping deeply on one of the grubby mattresses that line the floor of this derelict place. A few minutes from the centre of Calais, this is “Africa house”, so called because of the 40 or 50 Eritrean asylum seekers who now squat here, waiting and hoping.

Most of the inhabitants are male, aged between 14 and 30, although every so often a young woman darts past from one filthy room to the next. Small piles of possessions dot each room: a few clothes, a tattered Bible, a torn rucksack, a jumbo-sized bottle of ketchup. There is no electricity, and the windows are either boarded up or covered with blue tarpaulin.

Outside, rubbish is piled up high against the walls. Old sleeping bags lie on top of empty milk cartons, tins of soup and yet more flies. There is graffiti on the walls, most of it in Tigrinya, the main Eritrean language, although the occasional, quaintly old- fashioned slogan is in English: “Be sociable to everyone, a friend to many and enemy to no one, faithful to one,” reads one wall. “God help Africa,” says another.

Despite being further from the rubbish, the smell upstairs is worse. The previous night, I am told, the local police threw tear gas into this house, trying to make life so difficult for the squatters that they would be forced to leave. But, other than sneaking inside one of the trucks that queue near here en route to the UK, these Eritrean refugees have nowhere to go. They spend their days washing their clothes in a nearby canal, or waiting for food hand-outs from one of the local charities.

Issayas tells me he is 14, but looks much younger: “I have been here one month and two weeks. I came via Libya, then Italy.” Like most of the Eritreans seeking asylum, he has made the treacherous journey alone. So too has Michael: “I have not seen my family for six months. They are waiting for me to send money. I paid $6,000 to get here, and I can’t call them until I get to the UK. I’ve been here three or four months but I can’t tell them.”

The residents of Africa house are nervous of our presence, and only describe their journeys from Eritrea upon guarantee of anonymity. They are even more reluctant to go into any detail about why they left the country of their birth. According to a damning Human Rights Watch report from earlier this year: “Many of the refugees were fearful of describing their experiences in Eritrea, because they were concerned that doing so could result in repercussions for their families.”

Yoseph is sitting on a dirty mattress with his broken leg bandaged. “On the way from Libya, soldiers caught us in the sea, so I spent five months in prison there. After prison, I pay $700 to come to Trablous [Tripoli], then $1,500 to cross to Italy, and from Italy I came here. It’s very difficult. I have been here six months.”

Broken arms, legs and ankles are a common sight here, a result of the refugees jumping over the high fences and falling off the lorries. On a typical day, a minibus from Secours Catholique or one of the other local charities might take 10 refugees to hospital. Those with broken limbs carry a resigned look, knowing their chances of slipping quietly into a truck have diminished further.

Many attempt to cross into Britain several times a night: “One night I tried three times,” says Merhawi, who has also lived in this Calais squat for six months. “The border is very hard, the police are serious. I left home two years ago, I don’t have anything.”

Earlier this month, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) set up a Calais office to help people claim asylum in France, Italy or elsewhere in Europe. But many of these refugees still want to come to the UK because they perceive their life prospects to be better here.

View full article here