TUCKED into World War Two bunkers as the sun comes up, dozens of migrants listen for the hum of a drone overhead.
These tiny concrete shacks, built by the Nazis along the French coast between Calais and Dunkirk in the middle of the conflict, have been repurposed as the favourite hiding places of people smugglers before they launch their inflatable dinghies into the Channel.
It’s not a new tactic, but as local police use remote control drones to patrol the 100 miles of shores from which the dinghies launch, staying out of sight is harder than ever.
People smugglers text their clients, often in the middle of the night, and order up to 100 migrants to pack into these dilapidated shelters that were once used to protect Hitler’s occupied territory from British raids, or risk being caught hiding in the 15ft sand dunes that surround them.
Only once the tide is in, and the sun is up, do they sprint to the water’s edge before launching their craft into the Channel.
The police stop as many as they can, and the drones — used alongside open-top buggies that patrol the best-known hotspots — help cops as they bid to arrive in time to slash the inflatable boats with knives.
At one of the busiest camps, in the sleepy Calais suburb of Grande-Synthe, Ahmed, 28, revealed he has tried to cross the Channel seven times without success after French police slashed his dinghies.
Last Sunday, the Kuwaiti spent five hours in a ex-Nazi bunker, but the sailing was called off when smugglers decided it was too windy to launch.
He said: “It is my dream to get to the UK. My family and friends are paying for my journey from Kuwait.
“In Kuwait, we don’t have papers, so I want to get papers in the UK. I’m not scared of the journey. I know others who are already there. I’m a programmer — I work with computers. I will get work in the UK.”
Asked if he was prepared to break any laws, or take on any security measures, Ahmed added: “Yes, I am. The UK is much better than Europe.
“I will get accommodation and I will get work there.”
Most migrants have set up home in packed camps in the forests that line the side of some of Calais’ busiest roads.
And with their free bus passes, they spend hours travelling around Grande-Synthe, where volunteers dish out free food and let them charge their phones using a communal generator.
It is normal in Calais, where most people have come to accept the presence of ever-expanding, litter-filled asylum camps as a part of everyday life.
Even the local branch of sports superstore Decathlon in Calais, only a few miles from the busiest camps, has quietly restarted the sale of inflatable boats nearly four years after it ended the trade.
It also stocks life jackets, with the cheapest flotation devices being only £15, while bilge pumps — used by sailors to prepare inflatable boats — are on offer for £22.
Packed camps
It has rekindled fears that the store could be part of the supply chain for smugglers. It had been popular with migrants and criminal gangs during the first two years of mass boat crossings.
But in November 2021, pressure from local authorities forced Decathlon to strip its shelves of boating gear and kayaks that could be used to navigate the Channel.
The suspension came after one migrant landed in Dover aboard an inflatable boat, having used a Decathlon beach tennis racquet as a makeshift oar. At the time, the retailer insisted it was “no longer possible” to sell kayaks “given the current context”.
It even admitted that “people’s lives would be endangered” if canoes and other items were “not used for their intended sporting context”.
The recent return of rafts for sale sparked fury from local politicians.
Guy Allemand, mayor of Sangatte, a small town near Calais, said: “When you have bodies on the beaches, you can no longer turn a blind eye.
“This material for sale contributes directly to fuelling an organised and dangerous system.”
The mayor was tipped off by a local resident who claimed to have spotted asylum seekers shopping in Decathlon in January.
When The Sun visited last week, we found dozens of types of life jackets on sale, ranging in price from £15 to £50, with stock available for children as young as one.
I feel like the French government doesn’t care about us. The British government and British people will care more for us.
Ali Mohammed
We also found a £250 inflatable two-man raft designed for quiet rivers, which could be used to try to navigate the perilous 25-mile stretch to Dover, which takes four hours to cross.
Natacha Bouchart, the mayor of Calais, added: “Life jackets certainly save lives, but they also feed the entire clandestine chain that leads migrants to their deaths.”
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer held a summit for representatives from 40 countries on how to “smash the gangs”.
In the plush surroundings of Lancaster House in London, the politicians spoke for hours about grand plans for better coordination and more prosecutions.
But for the gangs near Calais — and their paying customers — it is business as usual.
Ali Mohammed freely admitted there was “nothing wrong” with living on France — where he has been for two months.
But he said he still wanted to come to England, as his friends had sent him photos of the hotels they were being housed in.
The 40-year-old Yemeni, who fled his homeland a year ago, said: “I hear many good things about the UK. A lot of people I know are there and they say they are being treated well.
“I feel like the French government doesn’t care about us. The British government and British people will care more for us.
“It is a better life there. I have lots of friends who have crossed who tell me they are in [hotel] accommodation. They send me messages telling me to come.
‘Nothing will stop it’
“We will be welcomed more. It is not a simple journey but it is worth it to get to the UK. Now I am here, I am going. Nothing will stop it.”
And 19-year-old Mustapha said he would take any cross-Channel trip offered by his people smuggler contacts — even if others thought that it was too risky.
The South Sudanese migrant said: “I will go on any boat they offer. There could be one chance and then I don’t get to go, so I have to.”
When Keir Starmer convened more than 40 nations at his Border Security summit this week, the PM pledged to disrupt the business model of people smugglers who make millions from loading boats.
But these migrants do not care if the PM, or France, ramp up their efforts to stop the crossings or smash the gangs.
Several migrants that we spoke to assured us that, whatever security protections the British and French governments put in place, they would still risk their lives to get to “kind” Britain — having been told by their traffickers that the crossings will never stop.
Some 36,000 migrants risked their lives to cross the Channel in 2024, and more than 150,000 — the equivalent of the population of York — have come since 2018.
For all the promises made by governments of both stripes, this is a problem that will not go away.
Eight migrants have drowned in the Channel this year alone. And more than 4,000 have landed on the shores of Dover since the start of March, with 30,000 arriving since Labour took office.
The camps in Grande-Synthe are only getting bigger, with hundreds more migrants arriving every day — all waiting for their chance to cross the deadly water.
