Calais crisis: Migrant describes camp as 'hell'

A makeshift migrant camp in Calais, known as The Jungle, is the home to some 3,000 men, women and young children hoping to one day cross the Channel and reach Britain in search of a better life.

The northern French port has become one of the front lines in Europe's wider migrant crisis alongside Italian and Greek islands used as an entry point for those crossing the Mediterranean from Africa or the Middle East.

One migrant, 29-year-old Mima from Ethiopia, told Reuters Television: "Life in The Jungle is not life. It's just like hell. All the immigrants, people, we're no secret here. But we don't have any facility, so it's not like a life just like a hell."

Mima studied IT and journalism, and said he one day hopes to return to Ethiopia to work as a journalist.

Freight and passenger traffic through the rail tunnel have been severely disrupted in the past weeks as migrants desperate to enter Britain have stepped up attempts to board trucks and trains travelling from France.

"I lost my two friends, they are dead on the train station [from] when they are trying [to escape]," Mima said, before adding: "When we're applying [to be an] asylum seeker in France, they [do] not accept us, so where [do] we go?"

GPS is used by migrants as a tool to help locate possible weak spots in Eurotunnel fences, Mima said, and they follow the daily timetables of trains to be ready and waiting once they pass.

Mimi said: "If you no catch up the train, already we fall down, that's our only chance. But the others, when you get tired, when you are tired, you wanna go back to the main gates. At that time, the police are coming by running to attack by spray, and they are carrying some sticks. So when they came to attack us, we are running to protect ourselves."