What Life Is Like Inside A Refugee ‘Jungle’ Camp

By Liz Smith

In a squalid French camp, 5,000 people—including 400 children—await their fate.

The UN Refugee Agency recently stated that the growing refugee crisis needs solving. Record numbers are being displaced by war and conflict, an estimated 50% of whom are children. In Calais, in Northern France, some 5,000 people, including over 400 unaccompanied children, according to UK charity Help Refugees, are living in a squalid makeshift camp known as the “Jungle.”

Recently, I went as part of an aid mission from my home city of Leeds in the UK, organized by Leeds Coalition Against War, to take donations of food, clothing, and prayer mats to the camp and find out what life is like for the some 5,000 refugees living there.

In Calais, some 5,000 people are living in a squalid makeshift camp known as the ‘Jungle.’

The presence of asylum seekers in Calais is nothing new, having started in 2001 when a Red Cross camp was opened in nearby Sangatte. Despite the demolition of large parts of the…