Joy and despair as migrants find different fortunes on death route into Britain

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  Migrants in a dinghy wearing life jackets cross the English Channel from France to try to enter Britain illegally. AFP

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  They left northern France to cross the English Channel -- which is 33,8 km at the closest point in the Straits of Dover -- in small inflatable boats. AFP

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  Walid, 29, a Kuwaiti migrant, makes a phone call at a tent at a makeshift migrants camp in Dunkirk. AFP

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  Falah, an Iraqi migrant kisses his daughter Arwa after getting her ready to be smuggled into Britain. AFP

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  Yaser, 42, a migrant from Iraq, walks on railway tracks in Dunkirk. AFP

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  Falah holds insulin injections for his diabetic daughter. AFP

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  Migrants walk back to their makeshift camp in the outskirts of Calais. AFP

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  Izhar, a 16-year-old migrant from Pakistan, lies down in his small tent . AFP

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  A French military ship shines light searching for migrant boats. AFP

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  Walid (3rd left) was found in the channel and brougt ashore on the DHB Dauntless tug boat. AFP

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  Walid (centre), reaches the UK. AFP

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  Falah washes clothes in a river on France. AFP

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  A migrant wears a t-shirt with the British flag at a makeshift camp in the outskirts of Calais. AFP

Walid has finally made it. After years trekking through country after country, weeks in a makeshift French camp, and seven gruelling hours on a tiny boat, he is on British soil.

He has managed to cross the so-called 'death route'.
His friend Falah, an Iraqi who is travelling with his two daughters - nine-year-old Arwa and 13-year-old severely diabetic Rawane, is still in France.
Just 33km separate France and England at the narrowest part of the English Channel, but it is also one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world with cargo tankers fill the bottleneck.

Walid, from Kuwait, met Falah and his daughters in Frankfurt, Germany, travelling on the migrant route towards a better life.

"Even if this journey is nicknamed 'the death route", we want to cross. We're heading into the unknown -- there is just God, the water and us. Allah will decide our fate," said Falah.
Walid is a Bidoon, a stateless tribesman with no passport. He passed through Greece and other countries trying to reach Britain, and the choppy crossing doesn't scare him.

"The hardest thing is not knowing when you're leaving," he said.

"Before this, I had never stayed more than five days in the same place. But here, we don't know if it's tomorrow, in two days or in two months."

On Thursday, September 10 - one month and 13 days after he arrived in northern France - his smuggler confirms that the crossing is imminent.

"We don't know until what time we're going to wait before setting off," Walid said, on the way to the meeting point.

Police patrol the coast, forcing his party to stay hidden for hours.

Reaching Britain

A tiny dinghy used to cross the Channel from France into the UK. AFP

At 7am, propelled by a weak engine, the boat slowly heads northwest. On board were 14 people including women, a baby and children, all wearing bright orange life jackets.
All they want is to reach British waters, so they will be taken ashore.

The boat’s engine stalls, and then restarts. The border is just a few kilometres away.

It's now 10am, and a red shape emerges in the distance. It's a lightship -- a ship that acts as a lighthouse and marks the start of British waters.

Walid is ecstatic, drained and emotional. He throws his mobile phone into the water to erase all trace of his past. His neighbours throw their arms to the sky and shout.

British coastguards arrive to tow them to the port of Dover. After a seven-hour crossing, the passengers set foot on British soil.

Walid, only has a few clothes into his small backpack. He is soon escorted into a bus to an immigration processing centre in Dover.
There, by law, people can officially ask for asylum before being taken to a shelter.
Father fled ISIS

Arwa (left) and her sister Rawane are still in France. AFP

On the other side of the Channel, Falah did not attempt the crossing.

Falah escaped Iraq in 2015 when the ISIS group was in full expansion. He left behind his wife and travelled on foot from Karbala in Iraq to Germany.

In Germany for two years, he felt he'd found a host country, but when his requests for asylum failed, so he set off again.
Every day, Falah has to find ice cubes to preserve his daughter's insulin, which he keeps stocked up via private donations and contacts, he says.

When it's good weather, they also wash in the nearby canal, and clean their clothes in the murky water.
In England, "everything will be easier," he believes. "I'll be able to work with my skills, in the food service or car industry."