Refugees Deeply | 07.11.2017
In Paris, informal networks of volunteers temporarily house teenage migrants they find sleeping on the streets. Many spend months trying to prove they are under 18, leaving them with few options for official shelter.
Gaëlle Faure
When Patrick* arrived in Paris last January after an arduous journey from his native Cameroon – by way of Nigeria, Niger, Algeria, Morocco and Spain – he spent several weeks sleeping in the Metro and under highway overpasses. He was 15 years old.
“I was so cold and so dirty,” he said. “I had dreamed of France since I was a little kid, but I had no idea that people slept on the streets here.”

