The view from Calais: Inside migrant camps in northern France

"I want a safe country, in order to live and to begin our life better than the life in Sudan with the war," says Ahmed.

The 18-year-old lives in one of the dozens of makeshift migrant encampments around the northern French port of Calais. CGTN visited two of the camps to speak to the people who are waiting there for a chance to cross the Channel.

The men - and they are all men - live in tents and under tarpaulins dotted around woods on the edge of Calais. The ground is muddy, and it is dark and dank in the cold autumn rain.

Some men have a fire going, two others wash their clothes in plastic pots, another couple try to get phone service with SIM cards donated by volunteers. In front of an old mirror hung from a tree branch, one man combs his hair.

Ahmed fled Sudan, made it across the Mediterranean in a boat, and then walked from Italy to France.

"I leave Sudan according to the war," he says. "The people are killing the people and burning the houses, taking everything you have."

Crossing the busiest shipping lane in the world

Ahmed has tried twice so far to get to the UK. When the weather and sea conditions are favorable, the migrants get a call from an unknown number, giving them a time and a place to meet.

Sometimes the gangs coordinating the boats do not turn up, sometimes they bring a faulty craft, sometimes the police intercept the migrants and deflate the boats.

"The second time I remember, they [police] did not find us exactly and we enter into the water and we are going but the engine finished, so we came back," says Ahmed.

When they do make a break for Britain, the refugees face overloaded boats, and cold water, wind, and waves. The English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world, and Calais is the busiest ferry port in Europe.

This year, in the period from January to September 4, more than 21,000 people crossed the water in small boats. France's interior minister says the new government will likely restart negotiations with the UK on how to deal with gangs that smuggle people across the Channel.

British ministers say their aim is to stop smuggling gangs bringing people to the UK. In 2023, the UK agreed to step up funding to $575 million to help France deal with the small-boat crossings.

Earlier this month, 12 people died, including a pregnant woman, when a boat sank.

Charities in Calais facing multiple pressures

There is help available for the refugees. Several charities are based in the city. CGTN agreed not to film the exact location of a warehouse full of clothes donations because the workers fear possible reprisals by far-right movements.

They say that the police impede their work in the city and they argue the deaths of migrants are needless.

"The atmosphere is quite heavy," says Axel Gaudinat, the coordinator in Calais for migrant charity Utopia 56. "We are in a mix of sadness and rage because we know the deaths of last week, the deaths of this summer, all the deaths in the Channel and at the border could have been avoided.

"Since January 1st, 43 people have died because of this border - 27 in the Channel. 2024 is the year that has the most people dying at this border."

Activists lament what they describe as the 'militarization' of Calais. There are miles of fencing and barbed wire all around the port - part of the French government's plan to beef up security in the border area.

Ahmed and the other migrants like him have traveled more than 4,500 kilometers to reach the area.

Despite harassment by police, the dangers of crossing the Mediterranean and the threat of deportation, they say a fire still burns inside with a desire to make it to Britain and try to make a better life for themselves.

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