‘The UK government can’t stop us. Only God can’ – we meet desperate asylum seekers risking everything crossing the Med
STANDING alone on a ramshackle wooden dock jutting out into the Mediterranean from North Africa, Saliou Bah has one thing on his mind.
Saliou, 21, from Guinea in West Africa, is set on attempting the treacherous crossing in a small boat — then heading to England.
He is so determined to come here that nothing will deter him — not the Government’s Rwanda policy, nor a fear of drowning like the hundreds who perished in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece last week.
As the number of migrants crossing the English Channel from France so far this year passed 10,000, Saliou scoffed at PM Rishi Sunak’s confidence that his Stop The Boats campaign is working and insisted: “It is impossible for the UK Government to stop us all — only God can stop us.
“I want to live in London, as I know the wages are higher there than in the rest of Europe. Once in England I will work as a painter and decorator and make a new life for myself.
Boat graveyard
“I am the oldest of six children. My father died when I was 11 and my mother does not work and has no money.
“I am going to England to make their lives better.
“People die on these crossings but I am not scared. When you are in the water, only God can decide whether you live or die.
“I will save up with other migrants and together we will buy our own boat because we don’t trust the traffickers.
“We all know someone who has already made it across to Europe and that gives us hope that we will too.”
Earlier this month, Immig-ration Minister Robert Jenrick embarked on a five-day tour of North Africa and Europe as part of the campaign to stem the rising numbers of migrants.
The Sun followed in his foot-steps to investigate the scale of the problem — and discovered the Government now faces a mammoth task.
An estimated 400,000 migrants will head from Africa to Italy in small boats this year — a four-fold increase compared to last year — and many are determined to press on to the UK.
The majority now leave from Tunisia, owing to the instability in neighbouring Libya.
One of the most popular departure spots is a decrepit wooden pier on the edge of the city of Sfax, where Saliou plans to leave from. It is nicknamed Titanic by migrants because so many boats, packed with people full of hope on their maiden voyage, launch there. The irony, given Titanic’s demise, seems lost on those planning to sail.
Almost all are men from sub-Saharan Africa, in their teens or twenties, who live rough in Sfax while battling to scrape together the cash they need to make the crossing. Fees can be up to €1,500 but vary hugely. Many migrants group together to buy their own second-hand craft — a cheaper option than the services run by trafficking gangs.
Two weeks ago Loic Azeutsop, 22, from Cameroon, set sail as part of a 40-strong group in a boat they bought for 25,000 Tunisian dinars (£6,340). He chipped in his share of £160 using the last of his money — but five hours after setting off he was left in tears when the Tunisian coastguard escorted his group back to Africa.
Now he spends his days staring out to sea and dreaming of when he can again attempt the 120-mile crossing to the nearest European land, the Italian island of Lampedusa.
He said: “I was devastated when they stopped us. Making it to Europe is all I think about every day, and when the coast-guard appeared my dream was destroyed. I will keep trying until I succeed — or die. I have no other choice.”
The traffickers earn a stagger-ing sum for each of the many crossings they organise. Joseph Thomas, 30, from Sierra Leone, was among a boatload of 45 migrants who paid 2,500 dinar a head (£650), meaning traffickers made £30,000 from just that one group.
After eight hours at sea, their boat was intercepted and the migrants were returned to Tunisia, exhausted and broke. The traffickers don’t offer a refund for failed journeys.
But he said: “As soon as I have money, I will try again.”
Seized boats are taken to the port in Sfax — the country’s second-biggest city and its industrial powerhouse, a four-hour drive from capital Tunis.
More than 100 small craft are now piled up in a migrants’ boat graveyard, littered with shoes, gloves, jackets and small plastic containers used by the terrified boat passengers to bail out when waves crash over the side.
Less than a mile away in the city centre, around 200 migrants live in a litter-strewn park, an African equivalent of the Jungle migrant camps in Calais.
Jone James, 29, fled from Sudan, in north-east Africa, when fighting erupted between military factions in April, and he dreams of a new life in England.
Rolex watches
Like with every other migrant we spoke to, the Government’s plan to deport them on a one-way ticket to Rwanda — now in legal limbo, with the Court of Appeal set to rule soon — is no deterrent.
He said: “Life is hell for us here. We have no water and I have not eaten for two days. So I will go on the boats. Some people die but it is worth the risk because it would be so good if I got to England.
“Nothing the UK Government can do will stop us.”
Mr Sunak insists Jone is wrong and he reckons his Stop The Boats campaign — one of his five key pledges as Prime Minister — is working.
But the scale of the numbers trying to get to Britain means he has his work cut out.
In 2018, just 539 migrants made it across the Channel in small boats. Last year it was a record 45,755. This year’s figure has already topped 10,000 — after 860 arrived on just Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile back in Tunisia, a Jungle-style camp has sprung up in Tunis. Around 200 people live in tents in a back alley just yards from luxury shops selling Christian Dior perfume and Rolex watches. It is a staging post on their route to Europe.
They worry about crossing the Med, especially after last week’s disaster just 45 miles off the coast of Greece, but not enough to deter them.
Married father-of-one Joseph Milk, 29, from Liberia, said of what happened off Greece: “It was a terrible tragedy — but it won’t stop us trying.”
Nasra Ayash, 28, from Yemen, lives in just a pair of two-person tents with her husband Ahmed, 30, and their eight children, aged between 12 and two weeks. She said: “We live a horrible life here, with hardly any food and water.
“It’s better to die on the sea trying to get to England than to stay here and die on the streets.”
They need more than £2,000 for them all to cross the Med — an impossible amount to raise.
Yet the hopelessly unrealistic ambition of many migrants is best summed up by Daniel Belomo, 16, from Cameroon.
He was a talented footballer back home so is heading to England in the hope of making it in the Premier League because it is the “best league in the world”.
As we leave the makeshift camp, he stops playing with his punctured football and hurries after us to ask: “Can you get me a trial for Manchester United?”