They are full of people who want to have the opportunity for a better life, which they believe the UK has to offer. Families gather in makeshift tents, but the usual food trucks run by charities were nowhere to be found in the Grande Synthe camp in Dunkirk, as many here fast for Ramadan. Johnson acknowledges legal challenges likely to face Rwanda’s immigration plan – live updates Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 8:31 Priti Patel presents details of an “immigration partnership” with Rwanda One of them is 17-year-old Shafi Ullah, who left Afghanistan in August with his two cousins and a group of friends. Safi is looking forward to reaching the shores of the United Kingdom. He failed to cross Wednesday night and says he will try again tonight – and will keep trying. News of the prime minister’s plan to redirect people like Safi to Rwanda had not yet reached the camps. When we told them the news, many were outraged but, honestly, they were not postponed. When we told them what Boris Johnson was going to announce, their reaction was utter confusion. Safi and his friends fled Afghanistan and crossed the Iranian-Turkish border before arriving in Ukraine, where they were granted visas to stay. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, they decided to leave. In six months, they had escaped two wars and were beaten and stolen along the way. They traveled through Poland, Germany and arrived in France. They are now here in Dunkirk and are desperately trying to get to the UK. Picture: A burnt car passes for a landmark in the Grande Synthe camp in Dunkirk First look at the center of Rwanda that will house Channel immigrants They did not understand how, after traveling so many thousands of miles, first leaving a war or persecution at home and then a war in Ukraine, they could possibly be extradited or transferred to Rwanda – they were very angry that this was a possibility. That they would be taken to a country they did not want to go to. They know nothing about. They could not even put it on a map. They said it was brutally unfair. They said they felt it was unfair that Ukrainians were being treated differently from Afghans or Syrians, who all, for different reasons, were fleeing persecution, war and conflict to reach the UK. They do not want to stay in France either. They do not speak French, but they all spoke good English and were clearly well-educated young people who wanted to find work and work in the UK. We asked them if seeing people being sent from the UK to Rwanda would stop them. Without a second thought, they said, “No, we have no choice. We have come this far. We can only go one way now and that is the United Kingdom, so we will keep trying and get there.”
