“Everyone is waiting to cross the border and go to England,” Hicham said. “I came all the way to Calais from Morocco. I assure you I'm going to burn that border right now.”
Mariam Guerey, a Caritas France employee, remembers Hicham's words well. It was autumn 2015, when nearly 10,000 people were crammed into a shantytown known as the Jungle on the outskirts of the city.
“Hicham had only arrived in Calais a few days earlier, but he sounded confident when he talked about the border,” Guerey said. “One evening he set off with a friend to try the passage. They had two life jackets, but one was defective. Hicham took it.”
