Lorry drivers stranded in Kent for the past three days have told MailOnline of their heartache today at missing out on Christmas Day with their families amid the ongoing border chaos.
Thousands of drivers from countries including Hungary, Slovenia and Romania are likely to spend Christmas stuck in the UK after the Government indicated queues outside Dover will not move for at least another 24 hours.
It comes as a group of Sikh volunteers tried to the raise the spirits of the stranded drivers with a delivery of 1,000 Domino’s pizzas last night, while relief has also been provided by the Salvation Army and a local football club.
Lorry driver Doma Dumitru, 41, had been hoping to spend tomorrow with his wife Alina, 40, and their 12-year-old daughter Daria Maria back home at Oradea in north-west Romania. He has been stuck in Dover since Monday after France closed its border with Britain following the emergence of the new highly infectious strain of coronavirus.
Mr Dumitru said: ‘Normally at Christmas time I’d be with my whole family, my wife, daughter, my mother, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews but this year I’m going to be trapped here in England.
Andik Jozsef (left), 47, from Rinvauilak in Hungary is parked more than a mile from the front of the queue at Dover. He has told wife Bernadett, 46, son Daniel (right, together), 22, and daughter Kristof, 15 that he won’t be coming home for Christmas
Ivo Ivic (left), 57, who is transporting chemicals used in building foam from Runcorn in Cheshire to Slovenia, had been looking forward to spending tomorrow with his grandsons Timotes, aged eight and two-year-old Lucian. He had planned a Christmas meal with wife Ankica, 56, son Jure, 37, and daughter Sama (together, right), 38 at home in Vrhnika, Slovenia
Lorry driver Doma Dumitru (left), 41, had been hoping to spend tomorrow with his wife Alina, 40, and their 12-year-old daughter Daria Maria (right, together) back home at Oradea in north-west Romania. He has been stuck in Dover since Monday after France closed its border with Britain following the emergence of the new highly infectious strain of coronavirus
‘It’s not good, not good at all but this is the perils of the job. I don’t want to be here sleeping in my lorry for a fourth night but there isn’t anything I can do. I miss my wife and daughter, I’ve spoken to them on the phone but it isn’t the same.
‘There’s no way that I will reach Romania on Christmas Day, I’ve already warned them about that. They know that this can happen with the type of work I do but it’s still very hard to be away from them at this time of year.’
Thousands of lorries were today still clogging the A20 route into Dover right up to the entrance of the Port.
France agreed to open the border again on Tuesday night but insisted that anyone travelling into the country must first take a lateral flow test which detects the new strain of Covid-19 and provides results in around 30 minutes, rather than the 24 hours required after a PCR test.
A testing site has been set up at Manston Airfield, 18 miles from Dover, but the 10,000 drivers who parked up in the town causing two-mile tailbacks and traffic gridlock had been unable to reach it.
NHS staff and army personnel were later dispatched to start testing 30 vehicles at a time at the Port of Dover but the process is proving to be slower than expected.
Andik Jozsef, 47, from Rinvauilak in Hungary is parked more than a mile from the front of the queue at Dover. He has told wife Bernadett, 46, son Daniel, 22 and daughter Kristof, 15 that he won’t be coming home for Christmas.
Mr Jozsef, who is transporting steel from a factory in Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire to Hungary, said: There is no chance that I will get to see my family, there are 6,000 vehicles still to be tested and it’s Christmas Eve.
Lorry drivers and other motorists are still stuck on the A20 heading towards the Port of Dover in Kent this morning
Lorry drivers wait outside the Port of Dover, with the town’s castle visible in the background, as the chaos continues today
Drivers at the roadside of the A20 making a meal while they remain stranded outside the Port of Dover in Kent this morning
‘The testing is going very slowly, I thought it would be quicker, so I’m going to be in my lorry for Christmas Day, there’s no doubt about that.
‘I want to spend the festivities with my wife, son and daughter at home in comfort not here on a cold road filled with other lorries honking their horns all the time.
‘I think France is to blame – they are being awkward on purpose because of the Brexit negotiations with the UK but it’s us who are having to pay the price.’
Ivo Ivic, 57, who is transporting chemicals used in building foam from Runcorn in Cheshire to Slovenia, had been looking forward to spending tomorrow with his grandsons Timotes, aged eight and two-year-old Lucian.
He had planned a Christmas meal with wife Ankica, 56, son Jure, 37, and daughter Sama, 38 at home in Vrhnika, Slovenia.
But, shaking his head, Mr Ivic said: ‘There’s no way that I’m going to be able to see them until Christmas is over. Instead I’m going to still be here in my lorry only a little nearer to the port, the way things are going.
‘I was hoping to see my grandsons open their presents but it’s just not going to happen. Christmas is a time to be with your family but I’m going to be on my own this year. Hopefully I can get across to France as soon as possible and just get home before New Year.’
Volunteers from the Sikh organisation Khalsa Aid coordinated a series of pizza deliveries yesterday having already provided hundreds of chickpea curries to the stranded motorists a day earlier.
Sikh volunteers from Khalsa Aid and Domino’s Pizza workers stand outside the branch in Sittingbourne, Kent, in preparation to deliver the fresh pizzas to stranded lorry drivers
The group of Sikh volunteers try to the raise the spirits of lorry drivers stranded in Kent last night with a delivery of 1,000 Domino’s pizzas amid the ongoing border chaos
Volunteers involved in distributing the hot meals to the lorry drivers are pictured last night
The group from Maidenhead travelled over 80 miles to help out, while some of its Langar Aid members journeyed more than 150 miles from Coventry.
Volunteers from the Guru Nanak Darbar temple in Gravesend cooked the meals, while staff from the Salvation Army’s South East Division were also helping to deliver food. Ramsgate Football Club was involved too, delivering 200 pizzas to the drivers.
Ravinder Singh, founder of Khalsa Aid which is based in Maidenhead, said: ‘We in Sikhism, we have the concept of langar, which means community kitchen.
‘We are British Sikhs and the least we can do is to practise our seasonal goodwill: two days from Christmas we have people on our soil who are homeward bound and do not know what is happening.’
Many truck drivers have been eating through their last provisions on the side of the road with some of the 6,000 lorries having been parked on the A2 since Sunday.
Mr Singh added: ‘To see a solitary truck driver in his cabin on a horrible wet evening on the side of the motorway, it drives you to do more for them.
Earlier this week Khalsa Aid also prepared hundreds of chickpea curries for the lorry drivers
Sikh volunteers also handed out snacks and water bottles to the drivers stranded in Kent
‘They were very appreciative but you could see they were down as they were unsure if they would get home for Christmas.’
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the lorries will begin moving on Christmas Day, as French firemen and the British military work with NHS Test and Trace to continue testing drivers.
Hauliers must return a negative coronavirus result carried out within the past 72 hours before crossing the Channel.
The head of the Road Haulage Association has accused France of treating drivers like ‘pawns in a larger game’ as the UK stands on the cusp of brokering a deal with the EU – an allegation the French have repeatedly denied.
Richard Burnett sympathised with the hauliers, a small number of whom clashed with police this week after being stopped from heading to the continent, adding: ‘It just feels like it’s a lever the French have pulled specifically around the Brexit negotiations.’
Drinks and snacks were handed out to the stranded drivers by Sikh volunteers earlier this week
He told the BBC: ‘We understand that we don’t want the virus to spread but I think we have to think practically about some of the reasons why this has happened.’
Mr Burnett added he was ‘relieved’ hauliers would be able to move after French authorities demanded a negative test following the emergence of a new more transmissible coronavirus strain in the UK, but added it would ‘take some time’ to clear the backlog.
He added lorry drivers’ rates of coronavirus infection are much lower than those of workers in other sectors, at between 3 and 6 per cent.
Mr Shapps said France and the UK had agreed to keep the border open at Dover, the Eurotunnel and Calais ‘throughout Christmas’ to get citizens and hauliers cleared ‘as soon as possible’.
He promised ferries will sail on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, as 26 French firemen brought 10,000 extra tests to the port on Thursday to help speed up the process.
Lorry drivers queue on the M20 motorway to enter the Port of Dover in Kent this morning
French firefighters swab van and lorry drivers to test for Covid-19 at the Port of Dover today
He said on Twitter: ‘As well as ensuring ferries will now sail on Christmas and Boxing Day, we’ve also got great cooperation by French firemen working with NHS Test and Trace and our brilliant military in a big effort to clear the backlog created by the French border closure.’
France’s ambassador to the UK Catherine Colonna added that the two countries were ‘neighbours, partners, allies and (yes) friends’.
A disused airfield at Manston has become the main testing centre for hauliers, with drivers required to self-administer swabs in their cabs under supervision.
Trucks began entering the Eurotunnel again on Wednesday after drivers started producing negative Covid-19 results, but it is feared it could take days to carry out all the tests.
Around 170 military personnel, including from 36 Engineer Regiment and 1 Irish Guards, are assisting with testing.