POST
PRODUCTION
SCRIPT
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
2017
People Without Papers
29 mins 20 secs
©2017
ABC Ultimo Centre
700 Harris Street Ultimo
NSW 2007 Australia
GPO Box 9994
Sydney
NSW 2001 Australia
Phone: 61 2 8333 4383
Fax: 61 2 8333 4859
e-mail thompson.haydn@abc.net.au
Precis |
My father told me to go. I’m travelling on my own - Mahmoud |
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It was over a year ago that Mahmoud left his home in Afghanistan to make a solo journey to western Europe, 7000 kilometres away. Along the way he would face what he calls “unspeakable hardships”. |
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Mahmoud was 12 years old. |
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Now in Calais, northern France, the boy sleeps rough and hustles for food near what’s left of “The Jungle”, an old landfill site that was home to thousands of asylum seekers from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, before authorities wrecked their camp and threw them out. |
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Still his journey is far from over. |
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Like many before him, Mahmoud plans to dodge local police and sneak on to a London-bound truck. Then, he thinks, he will leave all his worries behind. |
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When I reach Britain I’ll have a happy life and I will start going to school. I want to become a good human being - Mahmoud |
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Young Mahmoud is one of a cast of characters we meet in this report by Foreign Correspondent producers Poppy Stockell and Emma Morris, exploring the daily struggles facing undocumented migrants in Calais, Dunkirk and Paris. |
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Fear pervades their lives. Fear of police who are accused of indiscriminate violence, fear of locals who resent the influx of strangers and fear of fellow migrants. |
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When Africans and Afghans fight they use knives. It terrifies me – Mahmoud |
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I’m just afraid. How could I not be afraid? – Almaz, 17, from Sudan |
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Most migrants dispersed when The Jungle was pulled down. But now lone newcomers like Mahmoud and Almaz, as well as entire migrant families, are trickling into the area. |
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We will never be at ease – Calais resident Jacqueline |
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They play cat and mouse with police who destroy the first seed of any permanent camp, pulling down tents and confiscating sleeping bags. |
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They are living in the woods, on the ground – Annie, refugee activist |
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There is minimal government help with food or clothing or shelter. So the migrants must live by their wits, with some support from volunteers who say they are witnessing an emerging tragedy. |
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More and more 14, 15, 16-year-olds are choosing to risk their lives to go to the UK. We’re seeing such horrible deterioration of mental health in child refugees, really worrying levels of self-harm and self-destructive behaviours – Annie, refugee activist |
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People without Papers, is a 30 minute snapshot of itinerant migrants in search of a future. |
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Aerial. Road roundabout. |
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00:00 |
Dusk. French city. |
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00:06 |
Mahmoud walking street. Title: FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT |
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00:15 |
Title: People Without Papers |
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00:19 |
Super: Mahmoud, 13 |
Mahmoud [singing]: ‘My heart, my love, I’m hurt. My love, my love, my love…’ It has been one year and two months since I
left my home. I’m 13 years old. I have
three brothers. |
00:22 |
|
I’ve gone one older brother, then me and one
younger brother. I’m heading towards London. My father told me to go. I’m
going on my own. |
00:44 |
Mahmoud in
woods |
Music |
01:00 |
It’s estimated that 10,000 migrant
children have gone missing since arriving in Europe |
|
01:07 |
Mahmoud in woods |
Mahmoud: I faced unspeakable hardships and problems.
I’m sleepless with no good place to rest. Police don’t allow us to sleep. A person feels
drowsy day and night. A person feels unconscious. |
01:13 |
GFX: Calais |
Music |
01:28 |
Calais sign |
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01:31 |
GFX:
Calais is the last stop before the UK. |
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01:35 |
Razor wire surrounding the Jungle |
Annie
Gavrilescu: The Jungle as we know it,
was opened on April Fools', 2015 with the local mayor of Calais telling
people who are camping out in the town and around, |
01:43 |
Annie. Super:
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the town, that
if they come to this site, they would be tolerated. |
01:54 |
‘Jungle’ GVs |
The land itself
was a landfill site, covered in asbestos. It's surrounded by two industrial
chemical plants that have had a history of leaking before. But |
02:00 |
Annie/Closure of camp |
four major
evictions later obviously the, the camp is completely destroyed. People were
displaced, dispersed across France. Activists: No
border! No nations! |
02:16 |
GFX: At its height, the Jungle was home to
more than 6,000 migrants |
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02:28 |
Refugees walking |
Music |
02:37 |
|
Annie
Gavrilescu: In
January 2017 we
started seeing people coming back to the region. At least 100 of them are
minors and they are living without any form of shelter. |
02:40 |
Child refugees living in woods/Police removing possessions |
They are living in the woods, on the ground.
The police are not allowing anything that resembles what they call a fixation
point, so they take down any tents, they confiscate sleeping bags and
blankets. We're seeing such horrible deterioration of mental health in child
refugees, really worrying levels of self-harm and self-destructive
behaviours. We are
increasingly seeing more and more 14, 15, 16-year- olds choosing to risk their lives to
go to the UK. |
03:02 |
GFX: Migrants
stow away in lorries and cars hoping to cross the Channel. |
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03:33 |
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Jacqueline: There are more and more people coming. |
03:41 |
Jacqueline interview |
We will never be at ease. Since the beginning of July we
have been obliged to close the gates. Because
they’d started to throw sticks of iron bars,
bricks and
things. |
03:44 |
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This gives you a small idea of what they throw
at us. Big sticks like this. Here you have one stick of iron, and another one
there behind it. All of this they throw at you. It’s not nothing. |
04:04 |
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We can’t
do anything, say anything, do anything. From the moment we say something, ‘Oh
you are a racist.’ If we say something, “uhhh”, yeah. We can’t do anything
but retreat to ourselves. So that’s why sometimes we are a bit aggressive and
I apologise for that. |
04:17 |
|
There have been rapes of girls, we should not
forget that. We had plenty -- covered up -- but plenty nonetheless. |
04:39 |
GFX: Many local residents support the police. |
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04:47 |
GFX:
In recent elections, Calais voted strongly for anti-immigration policies. |
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04:52 |
GFX: Refugee
support is mostly provided by volunteer groups, not the French state. |
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04:55 |
Food
prep in Refugee Community Kitchen |
Sam Jones: A small group of us came here in 2015,
because we were |
05:02 |
Sam. Super:
Sam Jones |
concerned about the crisis which was
unfolding, just outside our country in the north of France. |
05:06 |
Refugee
Community Kitchen |
We had
experience in catering and chefing and production and event and festival
management. We're doing like 2600 hot meals per day. Big pots of rice, 100
litres of curry, stuff that's easy to cook in a relatively small space for a,
for a large amount of people. |
05:12 |
Beth addresses volunteers |
Beth: The two most important things are speed, so
really just getting through people, and being really friendly, making it a
nice space for people. If there’s an emergency situation and we
need to leave, don’t worry about clearing up, just get in the van and go. Volunteer:
Whoever is closest to the back door, just push it down. |
05:32 |
Sam driving van |
Sam Jones: The numbers are definitely swelling, yeah,
that's what we're seeing, there's a lot of young guys there, there's a,
there's a lot of kids there, you know there's a lot of under 16 year olds. On
the positive side they have a wonderful youthful hope and resilience. But
also they can be pretty silly and, you know, hot headed. |
05:52 |
Community Kitchen volunteers serving food |
It can kick off, and if it does, we leave our equipment,
we get in our vans, we leave. |
06:11 |
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Mahmoud: The biggest thing I’m scared of here, is
fighting. When Africans and Afghans fight they use knives -- it terrifies me. |
06:17 |
Mahmoud |
The
Afghans and Africans fight over food. |
06:28 |
GFX: Serious fights often erupt in the food
queue. |
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06:33 |
Almaz. Super: Almaz, 17 |
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06:46 |
Police van |
Annabell: Are you more afraid of the police or of the
men? |
06:51 |
Almaz |
Almaz: The police are doing things and the guys as
well. I don’t know. I’m afraid of both. I don’t know. I’m just afraid. How
could I not be afraid? Of course I am. |
06:56 |
Almaz watches guys by truck |
I
don’t have a good country so I came here. It wasn’t good. I came to see the
UK, Italy, Europe, France, see how it is… It’s not good. |
07:13 |
Almaz walks |
Annabell:
Where do you sleep? Almaz:
Here, on the ground, or there, on the stones. I sleep here. |
07:31 |
Almaz |
Five
years ago, I was eleven years old when my mother died. A car hit her. My
mother, my father and the driver. I was with them, but thank God, I survived.
I want to go and see the UK. I’ll go
there in a car. I go underneath the car. |
07:49 |
|
But
then with a mirror they look at the engine of the car, and they see me
‘Madame! No chance!’. You have a passport, you go. No passport, no go. No money? No. If you
don’t have money, you can’t go. And we return, what else can we do? And again
we try and again we are sent back. Again we try, again we are sent back. |
08:22 |
Young man hiding behind concrete bollards near trucks |
Music |
08:54 |
Guys attempt to jump on trucks |
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10:11 |
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Sam Jones: The basic tactic is to disperse and
dissuade. |
10:37 |
Sam |
If they keep the numbers down or the
visual numbers down, |
10:40 |
Refugees standing by truck |
the tactic works in terms of, you know,
the world doesn't see that you know there's, there's real need for help and
aid and support, for these people. |
10:44 |
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Annie Gavrilescu: In my two years working in Calais, I've
seen |
10:52 |
Annie |
pretty shocking
police violence |
10:57 |
Phone footage
of teargassing |
from
indiscriminate tear gassing, to |
11:01 |
French police
by van |
shooting rubber
bullets at people intentionally. The methods that the French police are using
|
11:09 |
Annie |
are criminal.
They're nothing short of criminal. |
11:15 |
French police
by van |
However there
is little to no accountability when it comes to French police. |
11:18 |
GFX: Police did not respond to requests for
interviews. |
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11:23 |
Border
checkpoint. Daniel examines truck for stowaways |
Music |
11:27 |
GFX: Daniel is a truck driver from Romania. |
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11:35 |
GFX: He regularly runs the gauntlet between
France and England. |
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11:39 |
Daniel examines truck for stowaways |
Daniel: Can you
see it? Look. Poppy: How many
people entered there? Daniel: Five or
six. I stopped the truck and got out.
I’m only one person and there were fifty of them. |
11:45 |
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Why don’t they go back to where they
came from? Iraq, Iran, Kuwait -- they should go back. It’s catastrophic this,
catastrophic. |
12:02 |
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All the people coming here -- in
France, Holland, all of them black. Why don’t they go back to their homes? |
12:13 |
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Mahmoud: There was no peace, that’s why I came.
There’s fighting, that’s why I came -- I had to leave my country. Now we’re
here without parents far away from our home. |
12:27 |
Mahmoud walking down street |
Once I reach
the UK I’ll have a happy life and I will start going to school. I want to
become a good human being and lead a happy life. |
12:42 |
GFX:
Last contact, Mahmoud was still in Calais trying to make it to the UK. |
Music |
12:59 |
Family camped in woods |
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13:11 |
GFX: Dunkirk |
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13:31 |
Abandoned
campsite |
Charlie Whitbread: There’s no warning. There’s no warning. You
never know when it’s going to happen. You just guess. I guess things |
13:35 |
Charlie in
woods |
have become a bit, little bit too
established, a little bit too comfortable. |
13:46 |
|
They’ve been left alone for a little
while so it’s all got a bit built up. And this morning, the authorities have
come in and cleared the whole lot. |
13:50 |
Police raid
campsites |
They come in in force -- I think in
total over 200 police officers, they cut tents open and they smash the poles
and bang on tents and rattle the families out, push them out, |
13:58 |
Charlie in
woods at campsite |
although this time they’ve done it more
efficiently as you can see, there’s still vans going past. They’ll try and
load them onto coaches to take them to accommodation centres. |
14:15 |
|
So about 60 families approximately, probably
around 400 people in total. So yeah. It’s a bit of a fucking mess. |
14:23 |
GFX:
Families are transported to emergency accommodation all over France,
some as far as the Spanish border. |
Music |
14:33 |
Charlie checking car. Charlie and Chloe pack car |
Charlie Whitbread: No they can destroy the tents, over and
over and over again and they can put them on buses and they can drive them to
the other side of France, and they can, they can rip down the tarpaulins
every morning, but people will come back and people will still stay around
here, and they will persist until they get to where they want to go. |
14:40 |
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And I believe with all my heart that they have
every right to do this. |
14:58 |
Charlie and Chloe take supplies to
migrants. |
|
15:03 |
GFX:
As migrants return to Dunkirk, Charlie and Chloe take supplies. |
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15:10 |
|
Charlie Whitbread: We will attract a lot of attention and
probably have a lot of people requesting things, especially after the last
couple of days. |
15:17 |
Migrants
walking through woods |
Music |
15:24 |
Police vans
arrive. |
|
15:37 |
Charlie and Chloe arrive with supplies and generator |
Migrant: Charlie! |
15:46 |
|
Chloe Smidt-Nielsen:
We bring a generator, we bring power to the camp every day, to charge
everyone’s phones so they can stay in contact with their families. Then we
bring |
15:54 |
Chloe. Super: |
shelters so essentially tarpaulins,
blankets, sleeping bags, tents, whatever we can sort of provide people to
sleep. |
16:02 |
Police vans and car drive past |
Migrant: This is the fourth one, this is the fucking
fourth one. Charlie:
Yeah they all do look really cool, don’t they?! They’re all really dressed
up. Aviators, jackets, guns. |
16:12 |
GFX:
The majority of migrants in the Dunkirk camp are Kurdish. |
|
16:25 |
Charlie with migrant family |
Charlie Whitbread: The Kurds, you get all demographics. We
have babies, we have elderly men and women, up in to their 60s and 70s. |
16:31 |
|
Charlie: Oh
look at that! |
16:42 |
GFX: Zirack,
Sazan and their daughter Saria are trying to get to the UK. |
|
1647 |
Family’s camp in woods |
Zirack:
No house, no tent,
no nothing. It’s a big problem for all children. But what can I do? It’s my
country’s problem. I can’t stay in my country because my country’s a big, big
problem. |
16:54 |
GFX: The family have been living in the woods
for almost four months. |
|
17:08 |
|
Poppy (producer): And why do you want to go to England? Zirack:
Yeah, good for
family. Good for life, good country, respecting the people...France as a
country has no respect. Just UK. UK is good for everything. |
17:15 |
Charlie carries child on his shoulders. |
|
17:30 |
Charlie
with Zirack. |
|
17:40 |
Migrant family at home with Charlie |
Child: Charlie! Charlie: Oh
really?! Zirack: Some tablet is good but no problem. Charlie Whitbread: We just brought one the families that that
we’re particularly close to. They’ve come back for the evening just to have a
rest and respite. |
17:49 |
Charlie |
They can stay
as long as they need. But generally people only want to stay a night just to
sort themselves out, because they want to get back on with why they are here,
which is to get to the UK. |
18:04 |
|
There are lots
of very hazy laws about having refugees or people without papers inside your
house. But this, what we’re doing here, you know, is showing a bit of
humanity. |
18:16 |
Family back at camp |
Child: Lanya! Charlie
Whitbread: Yeah, they stayed with us for a night, they had a chance to shower
and had a little bit of respite, and yeah we brought them back yesterday.
Yeah it’s slowly building up again and inevitably it will be repopulated over
the next week or so and then no doubt be destroyed again. But that seems to
be the nature of it at the moment. |
18:36 |
GFX: Zirack, Sazan and Saria are still trying to get to
the UK. |
Music |
19:08 |
Paris streets |
|
19:20 |
Deb handing out flyers in park |
|
19:36 |
|
Deb Hyde: There’s no good looking men to give flyers to!
|
19:41 |
|
Can
I give you one of my flyers? |
19:50 |
Deb interview |
Deb Hyde: I used to be a
analyst on economics and politics and what that might mean for investors and
traders, and gave that all up to come and see what was going on with the
refugee crisis. |
19:55 |
Deb handing out flyers in park |
Deb: “What I’m doing is I work with the refugees in the
north of Paris, and they only have one pair of trousers. So I’m trying to explain to
people if they have spare pairs of trousers, they could…” Man: “Where are you from?” Deb: “I’m from London.” |
20:07 |
|
Deb Hyde: I felt I was missing out something really
important about what Europe is. Are we sticking to our values? |
20:22 |
Deb interview |
Poppy (producer): What did you discover? Deb Hyde: That my worst fears were true. That what we
pride ourselves on, what our history is, what we think differentiates us,
this kind of false sense of pride that we established human rights and all
these values and that other, you know, that countries around the world
haven't caught up with us. Actually, we seem to be giving up on those things
too. |
20:29 |
GFX: Paris |
|
20:57 |
Deb walking down street, shows where tents were |
Deb: “Do you want me to tell you about the
tents?” |
21:00 |
|
Deb Hyde: There had been a kind of tolerance here of
the fact that they were here. |
21:03 |
|
Deb: “So all of this, all around us
here… was all tents.” |
21:07 |
|
Deb Hyde: In the night time, people
were dancing together, people were eating together… |
21:14 |
|
Deb: “And slowly, slowly, as the camps
built up, they’d start accruing rugs, beds, sofas. But one of the most
incredible things was, up here was all the washing. |
21:18 |
Police on streets |
After the last evacuation, when they were
asked to leave, to get into buses and go away, since then, we’re not allowed
to have any groupings of refugees here. |
21:34 |
Deb walking down street |
Now there’s nobody here near the camp, we don’t
know where they are, people are just being hunted. |
21:44 |
Mustafa walking down street. Super: |
Mustafa: I left Afghanistan because people used to say that Europe is very
good. Now, I came here to France but I experienced unspeakable problems on my
way here. |
21:50 |
Mustafa sits on
park bench |
I have
made an application for asylum and the French government told me to wait for
18 months, and it’s been five months. |
22:15 |
Refugee
reception centre. GFX: Mustafa has
been given temporary accommodation at the reception centre for asylum
seekers. |
|
22:28 |
GFX: Deborah works at the refugee support centre
next door. |
|
22:34 |
Deb with Mustafa |
Mustafa: All people are really afraid
from police in Bulgaria. |
22:38 |
|
Deb: Yep. Dogs? Mustafa: Very dogs yes. Deb: Turkey dogs? Mustafa: Yes. Dogs. Deb: I didn’t know there were dogs on
the border in Turkey. |
22:42 |
|
Mustafa: Hungary more dogs, Hungary. Deb: Yep. Mustafa: Closed border. |
22:49 |
GFX: Asylum seekers are supposed to claim refuge
in the first EU country they arrive in. |
|
22:52 |
GFX:
Many migrants don’t know the rules or ignore them. |
|
22:59 |
Deb interview |
Deb Hyde: Given where France is geographically, most
of the people here, we think, over 80% of the people in France, have either
already been rejected somewhere else, or they've had their fingerprints taken
in another country, possibly forcibly, which means that when they get here
the first response of the French state is "You need to go back to that
country". That's the agreement that's in place here. |
23:06 |
Mustafa with Deb outside reception centre |
They don't want to go back to that
country. They say they're not going to go, and it means that they'll have to
live on the streets, survive for themselves for 18 months before they get to
claim asylum. |
23:31 |
GFX: It’s rumoured Mustafa will be
transferred to another part of France tomorrow. |
|
23:42 |
Mustafa with Deb outside reception centre |
Deb Hyde: I think it’s very difficult for anybody to
understand the system, least of all the people who’ve got so much emotion
invested in it. |
23:53 |
|
Mustafa: They’re transferring the guys from Paris to other
places, saying they are giving us houses. |
24:01 |
Mustafa interview |
I’m told that I’ll be given a house, saying I’ll be
given a nice house. |
24:07 |
Men walk the street |
Deb Hyde: We have
lots of men on the streets here, who were transferred, but they were
transferred somewhere completely inappropriate. |
24:11 |
Deb interview |
They were transferred where there was
nobody of their own community, where there was no public transport, where there was no food, there was
just nothing. So because they don’t understand the system, they leave, they
come back to here, then they are registered as having escaped. And that means
18 months on the street. |
24:20 |
Mustafa talks with French woman |
Mustafa: I like French language, French people, French
women? French volunteer: You learnt French with Deborah no? Mustafa: Deborah? French good. Poppy: You’ve become mates with him right? |
24:45 |
Deb interview |
Deb Hyde: I wouldn’t say we are friends, but I would
say I’ve been here seven months, and when people leave, you can’t be there
anymore. |
24:58 |
|
He’s one of, I don’t know, seven, eight thousand men that I’ve
met. This happens every day.
You see people come, you see people go, you meet people, you try and find out
about their story, you see them again four months later because they wanted
to come and see you, or
because everything has fallen
through, and they want more advice or for any number of reasons. And it’s a very transient lifestyle for the
volunteers as well as for the refugees…
Maybe it will all work out. |
25:21 |
Mustafa and friends on bed with phones |
Music |
26:23 |
|
Deb: One
of the things that’s been extraordinary, you know, like, I didn’t know what
Muslim men from Afghanistan and Sudan would think about the world. |
26:28 |
Deb applying make-up/Walks down street at night |
And
one of the things that’s been really interesting is they really seem to get
off on the way I dress, like it’s some symbol of freedom. |
26:36 |
Deb hands out flyers |
They are supposed to be refugees, we
are supposed to be able to recognise that they’ve come from war torn
countries, they’ve suffered torture, deprivation, unimaginable things, and
then through a bureaucratic process that seems to be completely pointless,
all the numbers add up to the fact that we are just shifting people around a
chessboard. It’s got nothing to do with anything. And it’s people's lives. |
26:55 |
Mustafa dressing |
Music |
27:30 |
Migrants queue for transfer buses |
Mustafa: After getting up early in the morning, I took shower and took tea.
When I got outside, around 80 people were being transferred to other places
from Paris. There were Afghans and
Africans who were transported in two buses to other provinces, which are
almost four, five and six hours away from this place. |
27:46 |
Mustafa
walks down street. |
|
28:16 |
Mustafa interview |
Mustafa: But maybe they will transfer us on Monday.. |
28:24 |
Mustafa walks down streets |
.I’m
happy not to be transferred because I’m now familiar with Paris, it’s a good
place. |
28:29 |
Mustafa takes selfie |
Deb Hyde: He's a really smart, charming, work hard
man. He's all the things that people don't know about refugees. |
28:37 |
GFX: People Without Papers |
|
28:49 |
Credit start: |
|
28:52 |
Outpoint after credits |
|
29:20 |
Writer Director Camera: Poppy Stockell
Producer: Emma Morris
Editor Matthew Walker
Fixer: Annabell Van den Berghe
Camera & Drone: Niall Lenihan
Translator: Rehmat Khan
Edit Assistant: Tom Car
Sound Mix: Evan Horton
Grade: Simon Brazzalotto
Online Editor: Patrick Livingstone
Executive Producer: Marianne Leitch
abc.net.au/foreign
© 2017