Breaking into Britain Panorama

For centuries, Britain has been a magnet for people from other

countries, who want to make a better life for themselves. Now to

get here, many of these migrants have to breach fortress Europe,

which means taking incredible risks, living penniless on the streets,

suffering great hardships on the way. They have perilous journeys,

many never make it, and those who do can end up in a detention cam np

Europe. What draws them here? What dangers do they face? What barriers

do they encount sner to find out we're sending two reporters to

travel the route most used by illegal immigrants to the UK.

Shoaib Sharifi starts his journey in Afghanistan, hearing the stories

that are rarely told. He follows the Afghan migrants' paths into

Europe, meeting families whose children are forced to sleep rough.

Seeing the reality of these people's lives as they desperately

set their sights on Britain. And Kassim Kayire takes another

journey, across Africa, starting in Nigeria, where he tracks the trade

He follows the migrants to the Sahara, where they cross deserts

surrounded by armed men and suffer unimaginable horror.

And I'll look at how Britain and the rest of Europe are trying to

keep these economic migrants out. Together we're on a journey to

discover just how difficult it is Migration is one of those topics

that's guaranteed to generate strong opinions. We're used to

seeing foreign workers cleaning our offices or looking after the old,

doing jobs we may not want to do ourselves. But do we really welcome

the idea of people come nooing our country? -- coming into our

country? Got to stop. I'll be blunt. People come in this country because

they think they can milk the system. It's probably the only country in

Europe where you get this benefit, that benefit and God know what's

benefit. It's good to have a variety of people. Everybody should

live in harmony together. We're only here for a short time and

enjoy life. Do you think we should let everybody in? No-one more.

one more? No, enough. Too much is here.

We've got too lenient a system. They just disappear. Illegal

immigration they need to be deported, because they have no

right to be here. Too many foreigners, not enough? Too many.

They're taking over country. British people are immigrating

everywhere, Australia, New Zealand, America, everywhere you go, you see

British people. They're welcomed everywhere. We need to welcome

people in England. What do we know about what's driving them here? We

are lucky to live in an affluent part of the world. But for those

who are not, who have no hope in their own country, Britain remains

something of a promised land and Our reporter, Shoaib Sharifi, has

been back to his homeland in Afghanistan to begin a journey of

Afghanistan has been devastated by over 30 years of war and life is

hard. Across the country, the average annual wage is under �300

and life expectancy, just 45. Few people see much of a future here.

Shoaib's family come from a village 20 miles from the capital. Many of

the men he's known since childhood have gone abroad to find work. Last

year 20 of them died trying to get to Europe illegally. Yet the young

are still leaving in their thousands. I'm on my way to meet a

father of seven who lives in this Kabul neighbourhood. He's sending

He's telling me that he is aware of the risks involved sending his son

to go through many countries illegally in order to reach the UK,

but he says, it's like a gamble. He's gambling on his son.

Fakhrudin's 18-year-old son, Sear, has lived at home with his parents

all his life. Sear knows the road Sear wouldn't be able to get a visa

to enter Britain legally. He and others like him, will have to

travel on an illegal trail. But why do they want to go? Shoaib

meets a group of university graduates and the answer soon

The number of people leaving has made people smuggling into one of

Afghanistan's few growth industries. For the first step of their journey,

Shoaib and the graduates head for a Kabul market, where they've heard

it's easy to find a smuggler. And The smuggler can organise a journey

from here to London for around �8,000 per person. For an Afghan,

that price means selling land or property. But if you haven't got

any, you're forced to go it alone. It's 1am and I'm on my way to a bus

station South West of Kabul, just Buses filled with passengers leave

Kabul every night, heading 400 miles west to the town that's

border Iran. This is the bus. They call it the boat bus because most

of the passengers are young Afghans aiming to leave the country in

24 hours a day buses and trucks pour out of Kabul, taking migrants

on the first leg of their journey. This is the border between

Afghanistan and Iran. It's heavily policed. Many would-be migrants are

caught, some hidden in lorries, others on foot. The ones that do

manage to slip through illegally, face journeys of thousands of miles

over hostile terrain that can take years. Shoaib will follow their

routes, meeting migrants at the key moments of their incredible

journeys towards Britain. The other popular starting point

for migrants is Africa. The majority of African migrants trying

to get into Britain come from Nigeria. Kassim Kayire has come to

Lagos to investigate the route that many are choosing to take. Their

journeys often start with fake Kassim is a British passport holder,

but he wants to see how easy it is to get a Nigerian passport, that he

has no right to. I've heard that in Nigeria anything

is possible. If I wanted a passport, visa, bus certificate, even

immunisation card, I would be able to get it. Things can be done, all

you need is your money. Today, I'm going to the Passport Office to see

whether I can get a passport. I'm not Nigerian, but I'm going to see

how I can get a passport, how quickly I can get it and how much

it will cost me. Kassim's driver, Abiola, tells him there are

officials working at the Nigerian Passport Office, who'd be willing

to sell him a passport. When you say an immigration officer, is it

someone officially working in the immigration office or another

Middle Man for another official inside the Passport Office? Well,

they might be a Middle Man, but he is actually an immigration office

who works for the federal government that works at the

Passport Office. We head down town to the Passport Office. What I'm

about to do is illegal. So I switch it a hidden camera.

Once I'm through the gates, it doesn't take long for a uniformed

immigration officer to offer his help. It seems extraordinary that a

government official is going to help me get a Nigerian passport I'm

That was it. Without a shred of evidence a real Nigerian passport,

costing just �72, will be ready in a couple of days. Basically, I've

gone through all the processes. I've qualified to receive a

passport. This is sort of my guarantor. I have no idea who Lawal

Akeem is. But he's there. He is my guarantor. I've had to develop a

quick signature which is this, so it's Aminu Abdilahi. In the final

analysis, the passport I'm waiting to receive is a genuine passport.

It's in the a fake passport. It is a true passport that is coming from

the national Immigration Service of the republic of nigh John Kerrya.

The only thing that is not -- Republic of Nigeria. The only thing

For many, this is the first step to getting to Britain. Kassim would

still need to get a visa if he wanted to go to the UK. Getting the

necessary document to make a convincing visa application is,

he's told, just as easy, at a price. With money. All things are possible.

Kassim had no intention of using the false documents he's getting,

So, it seems pretty easy to get hold of a Nigerian passport

fraudulently with the promise of all the necessary documents wasle.

The real test is will all that get you into Britain? This is the

border, Passport Control at Heathrow Airport.

All the immigration officers are familiar with forgeries, basic

forgeries. I've come to meet Tahira Shah. She's been working here for

ten years. She helps to decide who can and can't come into Britain.

Because technologies have advanced so much now, it's probably more

easier to travel perhaps as an imposter. On a real document that

you're not validly holding? Yeah. Would you watch if a Nigerian

flight came in? Probably, yes. UK Border Agency has been very

concerned about the number of people flying in from Nigeria with

fraudulent documents. It's taken to giving training and technology to

the Nigerian police to detect forgeries, crack the criminal rings

producing thm and catch those corrupt officials.

But no system is 1 hundred per safe. Last year, over 2,000 people were

detected trying to get into Britain with fraudulent documents. Those

are the one that's were caught. What we don't know is how many got

This is the frontline of a fight against increasingly sophisticated

forgeries from all over the world. We would fingerprint, again, much

to make sure that they match the visa, but with the document, if you

cannot detect it, you do not know. No. So... So it seems to me that

once you are in, you are in. If you can buy the right documents

and get on a plane, you will save yourself the pain and hardship of a

journey overland, but not everyone can afford it. Thousands of

migrants from parts of Asia and Afghanistan have made the road

journey to Turkey, a key transit Shoaib has flown straight into

Turkey from Afghanistan. His fellow Afghans may well have spent months

getting here overland. Some of them have crossed mountains on horseback

and hidden in trucks, and they have ended up here on the streets of

Shoaib meets Suleiman, who arrived here a month ago as part of a

By this point, many Afghan migrants have ran out of money and their

The ones who can carry on another 150 miles west to the border with

That border between Turkey and Greece effectively separates Europe

from Asia, and it has been incredibly porous, a huge headache

for the Greeks, who at the end of last year called for help from the

The European taskforce held sprees in its role as gatekeeper for

Infrared cameras watch as migrants tried to cross the river and land

Undocumented migrants are rounded up. Shoaib went to this overcrowded

detention centre just over the Greek border, where some of them

It is a huge problem for the Greek authorities to process these

migrants, who arrive with no documents. And it is not just

single men. Entire families turn up. Once processed, they are free to

leave for Athens, but many, like Soraya, virtually have no money and

Within minutes of leaving the detention centre, Shoaib comes

across four young men on the road. They have nothing, no money, no

third and only a plastic sheet for protection from the rain. -- no

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Without the money for the bus fare, it is clear these young men have a

long haul ahead of them to get to Even the lucky ones on the bus have

spent all day covering the 400 miles from the detention centre.

And when they get to the Greek capital, they are stuck, because

without the right documents, they cannot get out of Greece. Shoaib

meets them when they finally arrive Many end up in the squares and

Shoaib meets a young couple who arrived 10 days ago with their

three young children, all under the age of five. They have been relying

on a local charity to feed their children once a day. They show him

where they are sleeving. -- Parents Abdullah and Zarminah take

turns to sleep and keep watch over There are hundreds of Afghans with

their children sleeping on the streets of this, the capital of a

European Union country. It is a A short distance away, near the

railway tracks, Shoaib finds makeshift shacks where more of his

It is not even three square metres, they have four people, and one

person can hardly stretch his legs. He is telling me there of four

people. I could hear at least two There has been hostility to the

migrants from the Greeks in Athens. It is not surprising, really. No-

one wants to see their city full of people sleeping on the streets with

In the morning, Shoaib goes to help at a charity which provides free

meals to hundreds of microns every day. -- migrants. The Greek

authorities cannot cope with these new arrivals. One man, an Algerian,

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is desperate to tell Shoaib about If the Afghan migrants imagined for

a moment that Europe was going to be welcoming, their illusions are

shattered once and for all by the But 1800 miles away, more migrants

are on the move, people from across West Africa are making their way to

Kassim was flying from Nigeria to Agadez. For centuries, this town on

the edge of the Sahara has been a staging post for people travelling

from the heart of Africa to the There are thousands of migrants in

transit in Agadez waiting to travel on through the Sahara desert to

Libya or Morocco to continue their But getting out is not going to be

easy. Most people have already travelled thousands of miles to get

here and I spent all of their money. -- have spent. Like this group from

Ghana. With no cash, they cannot afford to move on. How much money

do you need? How long would you need to work for $2,000? Did you

Mike Wren's dream of earning enough money to get on a lorry and make

their way across the desert, heading to the Mediterranean and

then Europe and on to Britain. -- migrants. You get to a point way

When you get the money, those lorries become important. Very

attractive! Do you come here every day to look and say, one day I will

To be where I want, that is it. is not only the men who have been

taken advantage of, it is far worse These three teenagers have come

1,000 miles from Cameroon, and it has been an even more dangerous and

difficult journey for them. Having been exploited by smugglers, they

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To me, it's been very disheartening, because I was thinking, this could

be my sister, this is someone's mother, this is someone's daughter.

The parents are there waiting, they know their daughter left. They went

to look for a life. If they called back home, what are they going to

tell their parents? I don't know what happened to those girls, but I

do know that many women end the George Bushies -- journeys they

hoped would take them to Europe in Where are the buses? The next monk,

it becomes clear that those migrants able to move on may still

face horrors on the road ahead. The road north out of Agadez into

the Sahara is so dangerous that the only way to travel is in these

armed convoys. This is one mass movement of people.

It's about ten buses so far as I've managed to count, more than 40

trucks. Because of the security situation here, they have to

provide security, that's why they move together in what is a military

convoy. They have to escort them The convoys head out across the

Sahara bound for Algeria, Morocco and Libya, towards the

Mediterranean. For migrants, this is a journey into danger and

uncertainty. Bandits, militia and the desert itself can tear convoys

apart. Recent footage, taken in the Samarra, shows overloaded trucks,

broken down in the middle of nowhere, migrants abandoned to die

in the dunes. Kassim is also heading for Morocco,

but he's relieved not to be If they get to Morocco, these

migrants will then try to cross the sea into Europe. On the other side

of the Mediterranean, in Greece, Shoaib has reached the busy port of

Patras. Every day hundreds of trucks leave

on ferries for Italy. Some are carrying cargo that's not quite

what's advertised on the waybill. For migrants, it's the perfect

escape route to mainland Europe and Britain, if they can get on one

At the fence around the port, there's a large group of Afghans

All day long, in plain view, an almost ritualistic battle is played

out between migrants and guards. The migrants are determined to get

onto the trucks and so into the heart of Europe. The guards are

The guards have seen a young man attempting to get onto a truck.

He makes a run for it, trying to get back to the other side of the

Everyone knows what's going on, including the truck drivers. You're

sure there's nobody? Oh, yeah. 100%? 100. Have you come across

anyone trying to get into your car? 500 times a year. Even today they

open my truck three times. I open up, I got two, three guys out. One

was on the Axels. He's risking his life. They suffer. They die on the

road. It's not right. That's my point. Europe is a power now. They

have money. They can organise this or help or find some way, not like

this. They are not animals. They Wherever Shoaib goes, he sees

Afghans just waiting for one lucky moment. He come as cross some

camping by the beach -- comes At a playground nearby, Shoaib

finds young Afghans. It's taken them months to travel over 2,500

Some of the people Shoaib meets The migrants call this road their

runway. It's where they hope to Shoaib watches as whole groups take

to the streets, attempting to board the trucks in plain view of

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Four times he tried today. ( Driver The ones that are caught receive

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A tanker heading for the port stops at the traffic lights and one of

The tanker pulls away with the young man clinging on below.

Migrants are desperate people. No- one knows just how many die trying

to get across the Mediterranean sea. Their goal is to get into mainland

Europe and some of them onto And some try to cross in small

boats and inflatible dinghies. I've joined an Italian Border

Patrol, which aims to intercept them at sea.

The paths that migrants follow to get to Europe are constantly

changing as they try to evade border controls. A couple of years

ago subSaharan Africans used to go to Libya, cross in small boats and

make their way to southern Italy. Their journeys were unbelievably

perilous. Nearly 200 miles through heavy seas on overcrowded, unstable

boats. The results - boats often capsized and people drowned.

Survivors sent back to Libya. Now, once again, Italian border patrols

are picking up increasing numbers of boats filled with migrants, over

40,000 have arrived so far this year with 1200 reported missing or

dead on their journeys. They've come from north Africa,

taking advantage of the recent political upheaval to try to break

into Europe. The north African coastline is the traditional

departure point for Europe for African migrants, who've slogged

their way across most of a huge continent.

Kassim has reached rab at in Morocco. He's flown from Niger, but

he wants to find migrants who've It's not long before he sees a few

faces in the market that don't look Moroccan.

The government here is sensitive about the issue of migrants, who

make their way across the Sahara, so we can't film openly.

Kassim is meeting a woman at her home. To get here she and her two

children travelled 3,000 miles over land from the Democratic Republic

She was stuck in the desert. She tried to pay the drivers off, but

they refused, took her off the lorry, threatened her with a knife

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Mourinho ran away from Congo, thinking she was leaving the

insecurity in our country. -- Philomen. What broke my heart was

that the traffickers even tried to force her child into sex, they

tried to sleep with a four-year-old. I mean, how hard can things get?

Philomen is stuck in Morocco, but she just wants to get to a European

country where she believes that a human rights will be respected and

Kassim has told about some men who have travelled overland from Agadez

and are in Rabat. They do not want to continue their journey by road

and not planning to use fake documents, like the passport that

Kassim himself left behind in Lagos, to fly into Britain. You are still

intent on going to London? Yes. Have you got a passport? A British

passport? How easy was it to get it? It wasn't easy, but I have

And it is your photograph that is in there? Not my photo. But you

look alike, you need to have him Glass's off. -- your classes off.

But you do not need to use false passport to get into Europe, and

you do not have to cross the Mediterranean a Smuggler's boat

either. For a migrant heading for Melilla is on the coast of North

Africa, but it is not African, it is Spanish, in the same way that

Gibraltar is a British territory. So if you can get in, you are in

Europe, and you are unlikely to get It is such a tantalising option for

migrants that the Spanish build a fence around their town to keep

But it was no deterrent, and hundreds of people simply left over.

And so, in 2005, they built this, a much higher fence designed to make

Europe a fortress. It is 20 ft high and six miles long. Defence is

formidable, and it has reduced the number of illegal migrants getting

through. -- the fence. But it has Inside, there is a detention centre

for all of those who have smuggled themselves through the border in

trucks and cars. This is their sort-of last step, and if they

manage to make it into Melilla, it defines the tree that will allow

them to break into the last of Europe, including Britain. -- their

dream. This man has travelled through eight African countries to

get this far. Where do you want to And it is mainland Spain where they

all want to get to. Migrants are sent from Melilla to detention

camps there, and it then becomes easier for them to disappear from

the authority's' side, and then it is not that difficult for illegal

migrants to make their way to almost any European country on the

Shoaib is on his way to Calais, almost at the end of his journey

following Afghan migrants. As a cross and hit Italy, they are using

mostly trains to Calais. I kind of feel that even in this train that

we are travelling in, who knows, they may be hiding somewhere on

On mainland Europe, the movement of my friends is virtually

undetectable. One reason for that is because of the European treaty,

the Shengen agreement, which removed internal border controls.

Once inside Shengen, he can go as far as your life. Until you get to

hear, Calais. Firstly, you encounter the Channel. And secondly,

there is a border, because Britain never signed the Shengen agreement,

Well, it is the early hours of the morning, it is extremely cold and

damp, and it is actually quite busy, lorries queuing up to go through

passport control to get into Britain. The UK Border Agency

performs checks on many lorries, looking for any migrant he might be

hidden on board. On average, they find one every day. We have got an

office in here now utilising the CEO to probe, and this machine will

detect if there is anybody in sight. -- carbon dioxide. It is connected

to a heartbeat machine. It is actually detecting movement inside.

So some sophisticated equipment and the enormous effort goes in to try

to keep Britain's border impenetrable. But even seeing all

of this, I wonder whether migrants And the evidence from our border in

Calais is that it is very difficult. Many migrants reached a dead end

here, unable to cross the Channel. Shoaib finds some of his fellow

Afghans living by the railway tracks, listening to music that

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Other migrants try and cross further along the Channel, in

Belgium, at the port of Ostend. And here, Kassim can see just how hard

people will try to make it into Britain. This is Ostend station,

the port, which combines three different means of transport, you

have the train on one side, the ferry on the other, and then the

trucks. Those who are very desperate will try to jump onto the

tracks, but this is electrified, there is an electric fence, and

quite often we have heard stories that some have been electrocuted.

It is not an easy thing to do. It is about 10 metres, the war itself.

But a desperate person will do In Calais, Shoaib meets 18 year-old

Kadeer left his family in Afghanistan four years ago. He has

been living rough here for the last two years, trying to make his way

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on to a ferry bound for the over. - Kadeer has travelled 3,500 miles

and spent a quarter of his life trying to break into Britain. But

the final 20 miles are proving Now I know what the migrants were

talking about, the famous White Cliffs of Dover. It is not a very

long distance, I can understand those migrants who are so

determined, despite Britain becoming more and more difficult to

break into. Because the final destination he is just an eyesight

away from them. They cannot just give up while they can see their

Shoaib and Kassim are back in London, a city that has welcomed

and benefited from migrants for centuries. Here is Kassim. For the

first time, we are all meting out. Welcome, welcome. So this is the

first time you have met, right? One thing that comes out of vocal

stories is how this is a European issue, isn't it? Greece cannot cope

on its own, it has got to have the bigger European perspective. People

were saying on the ground that at least one aspect of the EU is human

rights. No matter whether it is legal or illegal migration, what is

the commitment of EU towards humans? There is an argument that

says you build a wall so high that no one will even try to come over.

Well, they tried that in Morocco, with Spain and Melilla, which

really... I visited it. All you do is get rid of the official version,

which is people coming in through the usual ways, through the borders

that are known, into an official versions, where people have to find

alternative ways, which may be very dangerous. So you cannot build a

wall, it is always possible. People will find a way to come in. Son and

Kassim did not have to break into Britain, but what they found on

their journeys was that economic migrants are not a problem for

Britain alone. The issue is one facing all of Europe. With our

world so divided between rich and poor, it is easy to see why, even

in hard times, Britain remains attractive. For Zarminah and her