Calais Brutality Continues Despite Weather
Today temperatures are plunging back below freezing, and there is widespread fear that the region will be soon hit by snow. The authorities have announced they will open more shelters for children and women, and keep open the small number of spaces for men. Out on our emergency distributions of warm clothing, our volunteers have been translating the announcements for the refugees we meet. Many people told us today that the problem with the shelters is that they cannot take their tents with them, and if they go, the police come to the sites and confiscate those tents. Today during …
The Significance of the Refugee Deaths at Wimeraux
Tonight at the vigil for the five young Syrians who died at Wimereux on Sunday, I met the brother of one the people who was lost. He is still shocked and numb, disbelieving that the journey they made together has ended like this, in horror just 20 miles from their destination. He is in his twenties, now left alone in Calais – the rest of his family are still in Syria. His brother was 14 years old. In the biting cold and dark, you could feel how Sunday’s tragedy, together with numerous other rescues and near-fatalities along the coast, has …
John and Bato’s story
“The militia came to my village at midnight. They all had guns, and I saw them shoot people. They shoot people for nothing. When I saw that I realised my life was nothing to them, that I was nothing. That’s why we had to leave.” John, the South Sudanese refugee on the left in the photograph, told me this story at a distribution of bags and chargers one afternoon in Dunkirk. He seemed sad as he remembered home and how he had left with his friend Bato (right) to escape to the UK. As two young men , they knew …
Another refugee tragically killed in Calais
Today another refugee was tragically killed in Calais. The 25-year-old Sudanese man died after falling under the wheels of a lorry after being hit by a lorry in the early hours of this morning, French newspapers report. According to other refugees interviewed at the scene, the man had run behind the vehicle as it left the parking lot, hoping to get into it somehow. When it came to a halt, he tried to climb between the trailer and the cab when it stopped. When it began to move again he slipped, and fell beneath the wheels as his friends watched …
Helping refugees affected by the Sudanese war
Today I learned a heart-breaking lesson about how important our phone charging services are. When we’re giving out food and clothing, we also provide big banks of charging points, and sometimes we give out charging packs too. This afternoon Adil, a 17-year-old refugee, asked to borrow my phone while his was charging. “I will show you a picture of my home,” he said. I thought he just wanted to show me where he was from. In fact he found Facebook and showed me a photograph a ransacked and damaged house. It was his actual home in Sudan. Staring at the …
Meet Faisal, refugee and aspiring journalist
When he lived in Afghanistan, Faisal dreamed of becoming a journalist, but boys his age were being forcibly recruited by the Taliban and similar outfits. Although he held out, keeping his head down and hanging onto his ambition as long as he could, he knew thart if he didn’t leave, he would eventually be forced to join “them”. And so he packed his dreams and a few possessions, and set off to make the long journey to Europe, where he believed he would be able to lead the life he wished for. I met him in Calais when …
Never forget: A vigil for the Channel drownings
On 24 November last year, 32 men, women and children died in the English Channel when their flimsy boat sank in the freezing cold sea, and British and French authorities ignored their desperate calls for help.. Those authorities face countless questions about what happened that fateful night, but a year on the victims’ families are still waiting for answers. They have been let down appallingly by the British and the French states, and at the very least they deserve explanations about what happened their loved ones. For the victims and their families, we demand justice, and we will never let …
Tariq’s story
Yesterday I was helping out with English classes at a distribution when I got talking to a young Afghan refugee. He was about 18, the same as me, and we were getting along well when I somehow managed to get a little cut on my finger. The boy, who I’ll call Tariq, suddenly disappeared, only to reappear a few moments later with a sticking plaster. It was such a moving thing to do – he had been through so much, but he could still notice and help with my little problem. I have only been in Calais for a week …
Almost 1000 refugees rescued from the Channel this month
Early this morning we were out a food distribution in Calais when I noticed a group of Sudanese refugees looking very subdued and downcast. I was a bit worried about them, so decided to see if everything was ok. As I got closer, I realised that all their clothes were wet. Not just caught-in-the-rain wet, they looked as if they’d been completely soaked from head to foot. When I asked what had happened to them, they explained there had been “a problem with the boat” and made plunging signs with their hands. I understood; they had experienced something that has …
Sudanese man killed by car in Calais
Tragically, another refugee has been killed in Calais The man, Sudanese and his his twenties, was hit by a vehicle while walking on the road near the village of Nouvelle-Eglise at 6am on Thursday morning. Emergency services rushed to the scene, but the man was dead when they arrived. The man had only been in Calais for a few days, according to the La Voix Du Nord news organisation, so he was probably less aware of the dangers faced refugees here. He is the fifth refugee to be killed in Calais just this year. This shocking number brings home how …