Desperate migrants rush Channel tunnel

Associated Press

CALAIS, France

The young Afghan has tried every single day for three months to get into the railway tunnel in Calais leading to England and what he hopes will be a better life. For him, like the dozens who appeared as darkness fell, Wednesday would be the same even if their numbers were immeasurably larger than even a week ago.

Undeterred by an influx of French riot police, a surveillance helicopter, or a ninth death this summer among the tens of thousands who attempt to cross the Channel, the migrants came in groups of a dozen or more. Men and women, some hiding their faces beneath bandannas, walked single file to sneak over a bent fence along the train tracks leading to the tunnel and ultimately to England.

One migrant was crushed to death and another was critically injured after being electrocuted in Paris on Wednesday alone.

Migrants pressing northward toward both countries are fleeing war, dictatorship and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. They tend to spend as little time as possible in their southern European landing spots, sch as Italy, where two ships unloaded Wednesday, one carrying 435 passengers and 14 bodies and another with 692 migrants.