It’s not just Ceuta with the tragic images of thousands of migrants swimming to reach the shores of the Spanish autonomous city, located on North African soil. Closer to us, on the northern coast of France – looking across the Channel towards England – asylum seekers face equally dangerous crossings to reach Great Britain, doing so with low-quality and unsafe life jackets, bought in bulk from Decathlon chain stores in the French cities of Calais and Dunkerque for 17.99 euros each (15.40 pounds). This is revealed by an investigation by the Daily Mail, according to which the sports goods stores in this part of the French coast have become crucial hubs for the activities of gangs organizing human trafficking to Great Britain. But this, the British newspaper emphasizes, is only the last link in a vast international supply chain – reaching all the way to China – which profits from the desperation, misery, and suffering of migrants.
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Crossings to the United Kingdom
A stretch of about 120 miles of the northern French coast, from Dunkerque to Dieppe, has become a departure point for small boats heading to Great Britain since the outbreak of the European migration crisis in 2015. Large camps of asylum seekers have sprung up in the area, where people fleeing violence and persecution wait for the right moment to undertake the dangerous crossing of the Channel to the United Kingdom. Forced to wait indefinitely for a crossing for which they have probably paid exorbitant amounts to traffickers, migrants often have to be ready to leave at any moment. To do so, they seem to turn – somewhat surprisingly – to the Decathlon sports goods chain.
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One of the Iraqi migrants interviewed by the Daily Mail outside the Decathlon in Dunkerque reported that the two (pictured with bags full of life jackets) had waited for two months in France, together with their families, to be able to make the crossing
Life jackets carried in garbage bags
The Daily Mail reports having observed in the city of Dunkerque men, women, and children moving from the camps and taking the bus to the nearby Decathlon store. Outside the main entrance of the store, the journalist author of the investigation, Sophie Carlin, spoke with two other men who had just purchased a dozen life jackets each, then placing them in gray garbage bags. The two, originally from Iraq, preferred to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions from the British government, but confirmed that they would use the life jackets to reach the United Kingdom aboard a small boat.
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