Meet Leila

This is the beautiful Leila, who has also been volunteering here at Care 4 Calais . Back at home in London, Leila works for the British Red Cross as a destitution caseworker, assisting destitute asylum seekers with all enquires such as homelessness, asylum claims, health issues, etc. She also works as a legal access case worker for Care 4 Calais , dealing with legal queries of asylum seekers.

Leila told me she’s currently seeing lots of people from Afghanistan who already have legal recognition that they have helped the British in Afghanistan and had to flee the Taliban as a consequence. They have letters from the British military to say that they are eligible for support from the UK Govt, but when they arrive to the UK they are still issued with a Rwanda letter. Now the UK govt are telling them that ‘because they have received the Rwanda letter’ they have to go to the 3rd country before they can even have their claims processed.

“They are so frightened” said Leila. Many of these people had good jobs and led comfortable lifestyles before they had to flee the Taliban and lost everything.

I have also met people here in Calais who have made long unbelievably perilous journeys all the way from Afghanistan, who say they had to flee their homes because they helped the British, and they had been given assurances that they would be protected in return.

Overall, the numbers of Afghan asylum seekers are really really small, it’s a tiny fraction (less than 0.04%) of our population in the UK. But for each individual, this is a deeply unjust situation to find themselves in. In Calais the people I speak to amazingly still have so much hope, and they think maybe there has been some mistake that will be easily resolved if they can just make it there alive. It’s very sad that when people DO finally make it to the UK after harrowing journeys that can take years, they are often crushed by the reality and begin to develop mental health issues.