So, what’s happening in Calais?
For more than three years Baptist minister Simon Jones has regularly travelled to northern France to minister to those seeking refuge and support the people and agencies helping them. He gave an update on the current situation in his latest blog
What’s happening in Calais?
The situation across Calais continues to be difficult for those seeking refuge. At the last count (December 2018) there were 500-600 sleeping rough across the city. This is a reduction on the numbers in the summer but they do fluctuate. These people are helped with hot meals by the Refugee Community Kitchen and L’Auberge des Migrants who run the warehouse which supplies clothes and sleeping bags and some tents to those in need. The French authorities are struggling to know how to respond to this ongoing situation.
The British Government has recently decided to change the status to those children it accepted from the Jungle which gives them a more secure future. But it is still dragging its feet helping children and young people trapped in France who have family in the UK.
What’s happening in Dunkirk?
In October Juliet and Nathan from Peaceful Borders and I went to Dunkirk to get a clearer picture of what is happening in that port town. Since the camp in the railway yard at Grande Synthe was burned down over a year ago, there have been families in and around Dunkirk but over recent months those families have begun to live in parkland around a lake.
When we visited it was estimated that there are around 1500 people living in tents and makeshift tarpaulin shelters in the wooded areas of this parkland. The population is still mainly Kurdish (many from Iran), but there are people from Iraq, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries.
On the afternoon of our visit Care for Calais was there offering residents the chance to charge their phones and Medicine du Mode were running a makeshift clinic. Charlie, a partner from a small grassroots support group, a seasoned volunteer having worked in the region for the last three years, took us round the camp. His assessment is that the numbers are growing quite quickly, the needs are many and various, and there are a lot of children, most of them in families, but some unaccompanied.
When we were walking around the camp with an Iranian guide, I was struck by seeing a veiled mother, about five foot four, pushing a wheel chair in which was sitting a boy, probably her son, aged about 12. He was dressed in a shabby brown track suit and was clearly severely affected by cerebral palsy. They had emerged from a wooded area where their tent was one of a handful pitched around a fire and kitchen area. I was struck by all the reasons why this family should not be living in the mud of Dunkirk with winter approaching. Charlie, however, thinks there is little chance of this family receiving the kind of help they need.
Embed from Getty Images
Sadly about two weeks after our visit, the French authorities moved in to clear the camp and bus the residents to a variety of centres across France. It is not the first time they have done this, so the likelihood is that after a while, people will drift back and the camp will reform somewhere in the area, though not necessarily in the same place. This is not a viable future for these people and we would urge the authorities to work with the associations and volunteers to come up with a way of meeting the daily needs of the migrants while their longer-term future is being assessed.
In the run-up to Christmas there was a rise in the number of people from the area trying to reach the UK in small boats, a perilous undertaking for even the most experienced of sailors. This seems to be linked with continued French attempts to remove the presence of migrants from the camps in and around Dunkirk. Displaced people have been regularly tear-gassed, their possessions taken, and their shelters destroyed. They are forced to move with no settled place provided for them.
As people say, when the land is a shark, the sea seems a safe place.
This update is adapted from a longer piece on Simon's blog A sideways glance. It is republished with permission.
Peaceful Borders is a grass-roots collaboration of peacemakers accompanying those who seek peace at the borders of our lives and the borders of our nations. Peaceful Borders is co-ordinated by Baptist minister Juliet Kilpin, with support from fellow minister Simon Jones and other Peaceful Borders voluntary team members.
Stay informed - recommended related links
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Refugee Rights Europe - organisation which researches and documents the situation for refugees and displaced people seeking protection in Europe
Thumbnail image | Francois Gha | Unsplash
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Baptist Times, 10/01/2019