Mum of toddler, 2, in migrant camp says Channel dinghy journey is about 'life or death'

Two-year-old Clara is a bundle of energy, skipping around the camp, teddy bear in hand. “How are you?” she asks in broken, toddler English with a smile.

She poses for the camera, pulls faces as we chat and doodles on my notepad while sitting on the dusty floor, close to charity vans providing food and medical care for this near Loon-Plage, northern France. This is normal life for Clara. She has no idea that she was born in a camp on the border of and Bulgaria, or of the risks her mum has taken to try and find an existence for them both.

Mum Juliana, 25, was seven-months pregnant when she made the decision to leave Uganda. She says her father is an enemy of the state because of his previous involvement as a spy for the current government, which he left to join another party.

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

Juliana says many of her relatives have been killed and so she made the decision to flee. She believes she is the only person on this camp who is alone. There are no other Ugandans - just her and little Clara.

Each day they clamber through a gap in a metal fence, over a high wall and across a disused railway track to retrieve charity supplies. They have been here for two months and have attempted to cross the Channel five times.

Juliana has no money and so cannot pay the smugglers, which means she tries to force her way onto a boat. The last time, two weeks ago, she was kicked from the side of a dinghy as it left at night. She cannot swim.

She threw Clara up and into the boat, determined her daughter would receive a better chance at life, and the vessel disappeared into the night.

Juliana managed to make her way to shore and two hours later she was reunited with her girl after French police intercepted the boat and brought it back.

Uganda was a British protectorate, similar to a colony, from 1894 to 1962 and English is widely spoken there, and Juliana’s is almost perfect.

“I hope one day to get to the UK, I think it can be safe there for me and for her,” pointing at Clara as she giggles on the floor at a phone screen. “I believe one day, one time, everything will be fine.”

Like many in this camp, Juliana has fled her home country because she is at risk of serious human rights violations and persecution there and, according to the Amnesty International guidelines, she should have a right to international protection.

Seeking asylum in another country for such people is a human right, Amnesty International says, meaning everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek it.

“I have no way to apply for asylum in the UK without being there,” says Juliana. “So my only option to apply for asylum in a country whose language I speak, is to try and get on a boat to reach there.”

Asked if she feels safe as a lone woman in the camp, she said: “You just have to be yourself. Who can protect you?

“If someone slaps you, what can you do? It’s a matter of choosing life or death and if I stayed home, I think I would be dead by now.

“People risk their lives for a reason and instead of going back home to die, I rather take the boat... You reach a certain stage and you think ‘whatever comes, comes’... You don’t know how many times death has tried to take us, and it hasn’t.”

Her mask slips, and for the first time during our long conversation, Juliana, a woman of incredible strength, looks mournful and her eyes fill.

“We did not get a chance to be like normal people,” she says. “And we think that by coming to the UK we will get that chance - just to live like normal people.”