A father seeking asylum in Europe has described how brutal conditions in Calais have traumatised his daughter as he re-lived their failed bids to cross the English Channel in a small dinghy.
Ahmad, his wife and his two children, Maryam, seven, and Benjamin, two, have attempted the perilous journey across the English Channel – one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes – three times.
On a third occasion, just before Christmas, they travelled about 10km (6.2 miles) in a fishing boat before armed police intercepted them.
The family were taken to hospital in Calais after their ordeal.
A few months ago the little girl was happy and playing “all the time” but now she is scared and cries about having no friends or school, he said.
Speaking through a translator, he said: “Now my daughter is not normal, not good.
“She’s (in a) very bad situation, she feels not good at all and the doctor told me we need to take good care of her because she don’t feel good because she’s lonely, she doesn’t have any friends, no school, no child to play with or have the same language to talk.”
Ahmad spoke to the Press Association outside temporary accommodation the family has been placed in after a doctor said they needed shelter.
He said: “We have no home, but there is no other choice – we are forced to go back.”
Describing the effect it has had on his children, he sighed and said: “Two weeks ago here in the snow my son and my daughter all night cry: ‘Here it is cold, we cannot sleep here.’”
Referring to it as the ‘Jungle’ – the name given to the large migrant camp demolished in 2016 – he said: “Here is hell in the jungle, hell. Not for living with a family, not for living with my daughter, my son, here (is) very, very dangerous in the jungle.”
He said his asylum claim was rejected in Denmark, and he has been told by lawyers in France that he could be sent back there.
But, with no money, all he can do is wait.
He said: “I am happy to go anywhere where they accept me. I need only one country (to accept me and not send me back to Denmark) – no problem for me going to Africa, going to Australia, going to Japan.”
Clare Moseley, from charity Care4Calais which has been helping the family, said their plight was a symptom of a system that was “quite widely” seen as not working.
The Dublin Regulation, which covers the EU, aims to prevent multiple asylum applications, known as “asylum-shopping”, by making one country responsible for an asylum application.
Ms Moseley added that she was “horrified” to see the way Maryam had been affected.
She said: “I can’t even begin to describe how shocked and sad that made me feel, that basically the system is letting people down… she ran to us for protection and look what we’ve done to her. It’s absolutely devastating that we can’t do more to help people.”
