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 …
Channel Tragedy: We Can and Must Do Better
On November 24th, 2021, a group of people – each unique and dearly loved – slowly froze to death in the icy waters of the English Channel while waiting for a rescue that never came. Twenty-seven bodies were recovered and four are still missing, adding to the pain of the families – twenty-one men, seven women including one who was pregnant, and three children. Today, two years on from this tragedy, we remember and honour them, alongside many more precious lives lost on dangerous journeys to the UK – we may never know exactly how many. On that catastrophic …
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 …
Panic and fear now gripping refugees in Calais
Today in Calais I talked to Ali, a 20-year-old refugee who was so confused and frightened by the news from the UK that it broke my heart. Ali had spent all weekend reading about the Illegal Migration Bill becoming law. “Why doesn’t the UK want me?” He asked. “Why don’t they understand?” Ali fled Sudan when his family were killed, and he knew he would be killed too if the militia found him. All he wants is to be safe. But now he’s in an impossible situation. In France, the police take his tent every few days. He …
Why we must not forget the Rwanda plan
One year ago today, five refugees sat in an airfield waiting to be forcibly deported to Rwanda. The government wanted them to be a kind of showpiece, the first refugees sent to Rwanda under the new scheme which had been announced that April. Under the brutal plan, any refugee who came to the UK but was deemed “inadmissible” by the government could be deported to Rwanda with no chance of ever returning to the UK. Since May 9 that year, we had been aware of 130 shocked and traumatised people being taken into detention. Our team worked closely with many …
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 …
Refugees abused and attacked in Knowsley
“The gang attacked me when I was out walking in Liverpool with my friend. First they shouted insults, and when we didn’t do anything, they spat on us instead. When we still did nothing, they threw a heavy bike at our backs. “Then we ran for our lives.” “My name is Fadi, and I am 20-year-old Syrian refugee. Until recently, I was living in the Suites Hotel in Knowsley on Merseyside, which was attacked in February. “My ordeal happened a few weeks after that. My friend Abbas and I were walking near some shops when we noticed five men watching …
Surge in anti-refugee activity: new analysis
The Times has published a highly relevant and informative article about the increase in anti-refugee activity in the UK. As the article is behind a paywall the key points are summarised below. Hard-right protesters visited hotels housing asylum seekers 253 times last year amid a surge in anti-migrant activity across the UK, Dame Sara Khan, the government’s commissioner for countering extremism, said a neo-Nazi group behind some of the anti-migrant protests had been allowed to flourish owing to inaction from ministers. The government failed to respond to a warning by Khan and Sir Mark Rowley, now the commissioner of 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 …