‘’People don’t know they are still here’’; misery of refugees stranded in Calais continues

Two successive demolitions by French authorities left the ‘Calais Jungle’ refugee camp totally destroyed a year ago and many of the refugees who remained and continued to arrive with nowhere to go.

‘’The camp was bad but it’s not as bad as what has happened now,’’ one of the refugees still in Calais said simply.

The refugees that used to occupy our headlines have now been strategically removed from sight and we, press and public alike, have put them out of mind.

A mere five minute from where cars disembark tourist filled ferries from Britain used to lie a sprawling mass of wooden shelters, restaurants, tents and shops.

A shanty city squeezed on the border of two of the world’s richest countries where most of the residents intended to reach Britain and claim asylum.

Journalists used to mingle amongst the ten thousand refugees at the peak of the camp’s existence. The camp had churches, mosques, a theatre and a tent that read “five star hotel” across its tarp. Depravity, cold, violence and hoplenessness were an everyday reality. Camera phones were never far from the regular spates of police brutality and anyone was free to walk inside. It was a visible failure of humanity, a symbol of the European refugee crisis that was impossible to unsee.

The road that used to lead to the camp is a reminder of a young Iranian boy who called himself Bambino. He would sit there, waiting at a wooden stall, following volunteers around telling them of his utter loneliness and despair. The road is now as sad and desolate as he was. The police have introduced a ban on anyone distributing aid or resources to the remaining refugees there.

‘’Do not enter’’ spell out signs all over the bulldozed land that used to host Europe’s unwanted.

Despite the destruction and the evictions, refugees are still there and more continue to arrive, lingering with sodden hoods pulled tight around their faces and tattered shoes, fighting off the miserable Calais drizzle.

They wander around in small groups, dejected and vacant, a human reminder of the hell that used to be their home and the empty space that has replaced it.

The volunteers also remain, still sorting donations but their efforts severely hampered by frequent police seizures. In a single week, over 70% of the blankets they gave out were taken away from refugees by police. Piles of soup containers are stacked nearby a workshop that was once used to build wooden shelters for the refugees, many now don’t even possess a tent.

French riot police officers prevent refugees from returning to the shelters as the Jungle camp is demolished.

The refugee routine is made up of food being handed down to them in plastic boxes and run ins with French riot police. The CRS, armed with tear gas and rubber bullets, violently seize tents, sleeping bags and blankets from the refugees who find shelter in woods or under bridges. The days end with refugees attempting to jump on to passing lorries, clinging onto wheel arches or hiding in refrigerated trailers, hoping to get across the channel.

A group of Eritrean refugees, some as young as twelve, explain “we have so many problems there [in Eritrea] but here it is like the same, police beat us all the time”. They did not know why they were being beaten.

A young boy wearing a small women’s coat brandishes a day old hospital band: ‘’One, two hours nothing. Go out. None of them want to help us.’’

He points at his injured lip, ‘’police’’, a fact confirmed separately by others who witnessed it.

Another, shows us the patches of his coat, discoloured by police pepper spray, describing how the police regularly attack him and his friends, as well as dousing their blankets and clothing with pepper spray, rendering them unusable.

‘’People don’t know they are still here,’’ say’s a volunteer ‘’and they could be forgiven for thinking so.’’ Though media reports sporadically return to the misery of refugees stranded in Calais, authorities have effectively pushed them away from the sight of the public. The slim, sad figures walking up and down and the others confined to the woods no longer paint a picture of a crisis, though the depravity here is arguably worse than before and painfully reminscient of the Jungle camp, two years ago, before teams of volunteers and aid had arrived.

‘’You want to see my house?’’ says a young boy smiling and pointing underneath a bridge.

Beside him stands a boy, even younger looking, his face is covered in scars: ‘’Bambino, me 15 years old,’’ he says.