Callous and cold to citizenry in Calais

RIGHT NOW, as we speak, there is a little 11-year-old Afghan boy called Shafiq all alone in the migrant camp in Calais, writes Suzanne Harrington.

The other day his dad made it through the tunnel to Britain, but left Shafiq behind, presumably because the risks were so deadly. I don’t know what the dad’s reasons were, but they would have had to have been pretty serious to have left his boy behind.

Shafiq was interviewed by a BBC journalist, via a translator. He said he was “feeling really bad” and didn’t know what to do. Another boy said that the children at the camp couldn’t study, couldn’t play, couldn’t be children. And this is happening just a few miles away in Calais. Not Kabul, or Aleppo, or Congo, but France.

At this stage I had to pull the car over because I was in floods of tears — and I am not much of a cryer. The day before, my own 11-year-old son had turned 12. The biggest drama of his birthday had been trying to find his birthday present — very specific, overpriced trainers — cheap on eBay. That and how to work the sim card of his brand new mobile phone. Those were the biggest problems facing my son, on this side of the Channel Tunnel. Which flavour birthday cake to choose.

The voice of the abandoned Afghan boy is haunting me. I try to imagine being in the situation of the parent who left him at the Calais migrant camp, but can’t. It’s just unimaginable. There are more radio interviews with desperate adults — the elite of their home communities, the ones who had the money to make the terrifying journey from their home countries, the ones who speak English, who are often educated professionals.

Next week my kids and I head off to France for our annual holiday in Provence, which sounds dead posh, but totally isn’t — we drive the 1,000km in my knackered car and sleep in tents and hammocks for a few weeks — and then drive home again, having had a lovely time with our friends. We have the right passports, the right papers, and so we come and go across the Channel — and anywhere else — as we please. We choose to sleep outdoors because it’s a break from being indoors — because it’s a pleasure. Would it be such a pleasure if it were permanent?

Even with the luxury of shower blocks and sea views and pine forests, would we quickly tire of it if it became compulsory?

This probably sounds like middle-class hand-wringing. Which I suppose it is, but what other reaction is there?

When it comes to immigration, the French take no prisoners. David Cameron referred to the Calais migrants as a dehumanised “swarm”, and in Ireland we have citizens who spray hideous racist abuse across the houses of non-Irish citizens.

Meanwhile, small children are left in camps in Calais, and nobody does anything to help. Aren’t we Europeans meant to be better than that?