In the Shamshatoo Refugee Camp in the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan, there are 53,000 refugees living in sub-human conditions since 1979 with the Soviet Union invasion and 2001 with the USA bombing and invasion of Afghanistan.The family of the Afghan Enayat and his cousin Jamal decides to send them illegally to London to have a better life. They hire coyotes to smuggle the cousins through Iran and Turkey to Italy and finally London hidden inside trucks and containers.
However, the long journey locked in a container with other families separates the cousins and on 09 August 2002, Jamal has his asylum application refused in London.
As Winterbottom points out, we spent $7.9 billion bombing the Taliban regime. The question remains – how much do we owe those whose lives were ruined as a result?