WITH smiles, waves and victory signs, the first 40 of 1,200 migrants from the Sangatte refugee camp arrived at a Central London hotel yesterday and spoke of their joy at finally reaching Britain.

The group of male Iraqis and two Afghan families will be offered free full-board for three months in an hotel in an elegant four-storey Georgian terrace just minutes from Oxford Street.

“All of us are very happy now — big happy, top happy,” Amad al-Hashimy, 30, from Basra, in southern Iraq, said.

Given four-year working visas in the unusual deal the Government brokered to close the French refugee camp, Mr al-Hashimy said he wanted to settle in Britain “forever”.

He said he would start looking for work tomorrow so he could leave the hotel, where a single room with sink usually costs £38 a night.

“I hope to work here as a mechanical engineer,” he said. “I am ready to work from this hour. From tomorrow I hope to be starting a job.”

A trained mechanical engineer, he said he left southern Iraq to get a better edu- cation and to escape the tension between Muslim groups.

Mr al-Hashimy, who has no family in Britain, said he paid people-smugglers $7,000 (£4,450) to travel in a “big lorry” from Iraq to Sangatte, where he spent 64 days in the camp.

He thanked the Government for allowing the group of Iraqis into the country.

He said he had chosen to come to Britain “because I studied the English language in the south of Iraq”.

He added: “The economics here is very good and the higher education is very good and the health service is very good. It’s a good country.”

Others among the group were sleeping, eating and relaxing.

Several waved and watched the London buses go past from the windows of the hotel after they arrived in Central London at 2.30pm.

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