The boat keeps stalling, on the beaches of Pas-de-Calais
And the smuggler wedged me between the ropes and the pebble jumps
The zodiac keeps rocking, it's going to end up with the paddle

The propeller of the Yamaha engine got caught in a bundle of nets
2-3 kilos euros is the price of economy class
In international waters a few nautical miles from the coast
The mercury indicates -7, felt, -30
His name is Yasser, it's been 2 years since he left Sudan
He left the regime, to escape the high cost of living
Fled his homeland to finally find what he's looking for
A roof, a wife, a job, just a slightly more stable life
A bit of self-esteem, not just an immigrant, a paperless
Left Khartoum, without a cartridge in his pocket
I'm chasing after semi-trailers to hide under the bumpers

The jolts of the road hit me, my arm rubs against the mudguard
I have to pass the border posts, the checkpoints and the coast guards
Last year, I saw my brother die, under a 33-ton truck
A General Motors with a load full of oil
We are ready to risk death just to regain Europe
Because risking nothing is an even greater risk, my brother told me
I arrive in Maghreb, a Moroccan assaults me
I address him in literary, he answers me in his dialect
Without subtitles I understood everything, from the intonation he took
I clearly heard the word "slave", it's the same word we use

At 17, I'm too naive, I thought the natives of Africa
Were all from the same family, were all brothers of famine
I have to give all my savings to this racist smuggler
I must not lose my objectives, but I must obtain the right of asylum
They offer me a place in first class
Of a Spanish trawler for the first beach
Like a promise made on the sand
Barely written that already the sea erases it
I'm going there, where to drink I'm not of legal age
But the age to die by drowning
I regain strength, I doze off
I hear the captain shouting "Guardia Civil"

I dive into the Mediterranean, to avoid the border control
It's the coast I'm going to rally, swim in synchronized swimming
In two steps three movements, I dock, run towards the barbed wire wall
I do mountaineering without a rope, on the metallic grey fences
Everything is rusted from top to bottom, if I don't die I have tetanus
Everything is locked at the base, they already call me "clandestino"
I let go from a height of 3 meters, to run towards the freight trains
I hear behind me the gunshots, while penetrating the Schengen area
In a freight wagon
Crossing the police, I think it's my nightmare.

I've done the roads, the seas, now I'm doing the railways
I'm going to miss the air or to make the road on a farm horse
Between the nuts and the "naranja"
I'm surely traveling with a bit of marijuana
I don't know who is more illegal, if it's me or the cannabis
I know what is more unequal, their laws or their rifles
Two nights in a row traveling, without having bought a ticket
I hear the Malinois barking and the customs officers' walkie-talkies
They speak a French in slang, accent to cut with a knife
Like in the movie by Dany Boon, which I watched in V.O

I went to an English-speaking school, that's why I want to join London
In the City, I just want a job, even to take out the trash from their clubs
For the moment, I'm waiting, stuck in Calais in a tent camp
I'm here to try my luck again, up to the Gates of the Channel
Every day, a day without end, I embark on a wreck
And I pay the full fare again, to be able to cross the waves
This time, it's for real, the human trafficker told me
If you die in the big bath, anyway he washes his hands
It's not worse in the end, than the two governments

Whether it's England or France who send all the migrants back
No worse than the men in blue who tear the tent canvases
Anyway their stories of welcome, their asylum rights are only for whites
About thirty fugitives, on board a nautical dinghy
Children and even women, all with good reasons
Without any life jacket, not even for the little ones
We are all just a few miles from the southeast British coast
It's going to have to end, we're on the verge of hypothermia
The weather is terrible, we can only see clearly temporarily

I can't see the front of the ship anymore, if there are the maritime police
What was supposed to happen, happened, the whole boat capsized
Hit on the starboard side by a container ship
The children cry, the mothers scream and can't contain themselves anymore
I call the coast guard on the phone who contradict each other
They say it's the others' fault, that we're sailing in British waters
In the land of fish and chips, I wanted to work as a diver
I'm going to die a submarine diver between the Channel and the North Sea
Up to the north coast I try to swim literally
I cross a German chemical tanker that must take me for a school of whiting

But my young teenage lungs are filling with salt water
I feel my pulse slowing down, so I let myself go
My body in the depths, carried away by its dead weight
In the fishy waters where you can no longer hear hearts beating

Yasser was fished out, in the Port of Calais
And about thirty bodies exhumed from a bluish cemetery
Child of destiny
Child of war
Sudanese, Eritreans, Yemenis, Kurds, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians

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