Calais Jungle

Badeldin Shogar, a Sudanese migrant, at the Jungle in October 2015

Migrants based in Calais were attempting to enter the United Kingdom via the Port of Calais or the Channel Tunnel by stowing away on lorries, ferries, cars, or trains.[2] Some migrants were attempting to return to the United Kingdom having once lived there,[3] whilst others were attempting to enter the British labour market to work illegally rather than claim asylum in France.[4][5] Some migrants lived in the camp while seeking asylum in France, a choice they made because the French system did not provide for them while their claim was being processed, leaving them homeless for the duration.[6] One migrant from Egypt, a politics graduate, told The Guardian that he had "paid $3,000 (£2,000) to leave Egypt, risked my life on a boat to Italy spending days at sea" and that in one month he had tried 20 times to reach England; another, an Eritrean woman with a one-year-old child, had paid €2,500 (£1,825) – and her husband the same – to sail to Italy, but her husband had drowned during the journey.[7] Migrants risk their lives when they try to climb aboard or travel on lorries, occasionally falling off and breaking bones; some fatalities en route are also recorded.[7][8] In September 2016, workers began building a barrier, dubbed "The Great Wall Of Calais", to block refugees from accessing a highway where they could stow away on vehicles bound for Britain.[9]

Migrants have gathered around Calais since at least the 1990s.[10] A refugee centre opened in 1999 and had been administered by the French Red Cross at Sangatte, but rapidly became overcrowded.[11][12] After the Sangatte facility was closed in November 2002 by Nicolas Sarkozy (then the French Minister of the Interior) under pressure from the UK government, a "jungle" camp was established in the woods around the Port of Calais,[4][11] along with various other camps that sprung up around the city before being torn down by the authorities.[13] The large camp lasted until April 2009, when the French authorities launched a raid, arresting 190 people and using bulldozers to destroy tents. By July 2009, the camp had been re-established, and the BBC estimated it held around 800 inhabitants.[4] French authorities closed down the camp in a September 2009 dawn raid and detained 276 people.[14][15] Conditions in these camps were poor, typically without proper sanitary or washing facilities and accommodation consisting of tents and improvised shelters. Food was supplied by charity kitchens. The French authorities faced a dilemma of addressing humanitarian needs without attracting additional migrants.[4] The notion of humanitarian aid provision being a pull factor to the area has been contested by academics.[16][17][18][19]

Smaller camps continued to be set up and evicted over the following years, and local volunteers provided aid to migrants.[13][20] After a visit to the city by French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve in September 2014, Cazeneuve and the mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart agreed on opening a day centre in Calais for migrants and a night shelter specifically for women and children.[21] It was this decision that led to the opening of the Jules Ferry Centre in January of the following year, around which the camp expanded.[13] In December 2014, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said the conditions in Calais were "totally unacceptable".[13] In partnership with local associations, the UNHCR also reported that 15 people, including young women and teenagers, had died at the border during 2014.[13]

In January 2015, the government set up an official day centre, initially consisting of three military tents in the car park of a former children's holiday camp, the Jules Ferry Centre.[22] Located on the eastern outskirts of the city,[7] this was the first permanent site for migrants in the area since the camp at Sangatte.[22] It was run by La Vie Active[13] and was set up as a place from which food could be distributed, with overnight accommodation for up to 500 women and children added a few months later.[22] Migrants were pushed towards this site through the dismantling of other encampments around the city and the area around the Jules Ferry Centre became a "tolerated zone" where migrants camped.[7][23] It is this site that developed into the Calais Jungle.[13]

The Calais Jungle was located on a former landfill site in a Seveso zone. The land had been polluted by industrial waste and had been designated a Natura 2000 protected nature habitat.[24][23] From 2000 onwards, the name 'jungle' has been used by migrants to describe many encampments and shanty towns around Calais. The use of the word to describe encampments is thought to derive from the Pashto word ‘dzjangal’ which means a forest or wood.[23] The moniker 'Calais Jungle' is now most associated with this particular camp that existed from January 2015 to October 2016, located on the eastern edge of Calais, under 500 metres (1,600 ft) away from the Port of Calais and next to the N216 bypass, used by vehicles approaching or leaving the ferry terminal. It was tolerated by the French authorities who officially referred to it as the Camp de la Lande ('Lande' meaning 'heath' or 'moor', referring to the geography and location of the site, a sandy area of flats and dunes outside the perimeter of the city).[23]

Tents at the jungle in October 2015

By September 2014, The Guardian estimated that there were 1,300 migrants in Calais, mostly from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria.[5] In 2015, during the peak of the so-called European migrant crisis, the numbers began to grow. Migrants arrived from Afghanistan, Darfur, Iraq and other conflict zones.[25] By July 2015, The Telegraph reported that the "new jungle" had 3,000 inhabitants.[26]

Médecins du Monde stated in 2015 that 62% of the migrants in Calais were young men with an average age of 33, with an increase in the number unaccompanied children (517 in 2014, eight times more than in 2011).[27] Many migrants later moved to smaller camps near Calais and Dunkirk.[28][3] As of November 2015, there were an estimated 6,000 migrants living in Calais,[29] policed by over 1,000 officers.[30] That winter, the number of arrivals decreased while a number of migrants left the camp, such as 3,569 who were 'welcomed to France'.[31] At the end of February 2016, the BBC noted that there were differing figures for the population: "Calais officials say it houses 3,700, while Help Refugees puts it at 5,497".[32] Aid organisations put discrepancies between their and the authorities' figures down to different counting methods and a reluctance from migrants to speak to border police.[33]

Refugee Rights Data Project (RRDP, later known as Refugee Rights Europe) released a report in April 2016 called The Long Wait: Filling the data gaps relating to refugees and displaced people in the Calais camp.[34] It stated that 75.9% of the 870 refugees surveyed said they had experienced police violence, a category including physical and sexual violence, verbal abuse and misuse of tear gas. A similar figure (76.7%) reported health issues resulting from living in the Jungle.[35] According to The Long Wait, at the time of the report 71.6% of the approximately 5,500 residents had been in the camp for three to six months. About 78 people had been there for more than a year and around 205 women lived in the camp at this time (3.2% of the population).[36]

A large fight between 200 and 300 migrants from Afghanistan and Sudan broke out at the camp in late May 2016, resulting in 40 injuries (33 migrants, 5 aid workers and 2 police officers), of which 3 were serious (including a stabbing).[37] Two hundred police officers, seventy firefighters and eleven ambulances responded to the scene; French authorities opened an investigation.[37] At the time, Deutsche Welle estimated that 4,000 to 5,000 people lived in the camp.[37] During the summer, the population of the camp surpassed the highest number of the previous year.[31][38] According to a July 2016 census by Help Refugees, the camp was populated by 7,307 migrants, of which 761 were minors with the population growing by 50 people a day on average.[38] By September, the state estimated the population at 6,901, while local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) put it at 9,000 – a figure accepted by Mayor Bouchart.[31] It was estimated that the population reached 10,000 before the camp's demolition.[39][38] Help Refugees' final count put the population of the camp at 8,143 in October 2016.[1] More than 1,000 police were deployed during the final eviction.[40]

In July 2017, Human Rights Watch (HRW) presented its findings on police violence in Calais based on interviews conducted with more than 60 temporary residents, half of whom were unaccompanied minors.[41] In the international NGO's report, it revealed that there was an unregulated use of pepper spray by Calais police throughout the Jungle, resulting not only in the physical and psychological trauma of the refugees, but also the spoilage of their food and water, an act which the interviewed refugees alleged as intentional. In a broader report published earlier in the month, "Nobody Deserves to Live This Way!", the Human Trafficking Foundation (HTF) noted that the hostilities of the French government and police towards Calais refugees were meant to deter them from initiating the process to seek asylum in the U.K., particularly impacting unaccompanied minors with decreased access to information about their rights.[42]

UNITED for Intercultural Action lists more than 40 migrant deaths in and around Calais during the time of the Jungle. Causes of death include suffocation in the back of a lorry, being hit by a vehicle (including train), beaten to death by people smugglers, killed during a fight between migrants, drowning, suspected heart attack, and suspected murder by right-wing extremists.[43]

A makeshift library in the camp, January 2016

The entrance to St Michael's Church in 2016

In 2015, a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) doctor who had worked in the camp for ten days claimed that the conditions were worse than anything she had seen in African slums. Access to water taps and showers was inadequate.[44] Médecins du Monde stated in July 2015 that there was "insufficient drinking water (30 taps), practically no toilets (20 for 3,000 people), insufficient food, inadequate health care."[26] Roads could be mapped in the camp[45] and some lighting was installed through its centre; although most of the camp was unlit, residents reported feeling vulnerable at night.[46]

Residents built dwellings and set up amenities,[47] including shops,[48] restaurants,[49] hair dressers and places of worship.[50] Food critic A. A. Gill ate at a nameless restaurant run by Mohammed Ali from Peshawar, rating both food and atmosphere four out of five, commenting that the main course was "a properly, cleverly crafted and wholly unexpected dish, made with finesse".[51] After an appeal by NGOs to the court in Lille that the amenities were vital for feeding residents, a judge blocked authorities from attempting to raze restaurants and shops in August 2016, ruling there was no legal basis for the demolitions.[48]

St. Michael's Church (also known as the Ethiopian Church) was first erected in November 2014. It had to be moved in April 2015 and subsequently burnt down after a candle was dropped; it was reconstructed out of waste materials and completed in July 2015.[52] The church was featured on the BBC Television's Songs of Praise in August 2015.[53][54] This was a controversial action since the BBC was accused of wasting its licence payers' fees and of taking a political stance. Senior Church of England figures such as the Bishop of Leeds, the Dean of Durham and the Archbishop of Canterbury said they fully supported the program.[55] In 2016, a different church and a mosque were demolished by the authorities.[56]

A number of NGOs worked to provide refugee relief, including the French associations L'Aubergue des Migrants, Salam, Secours Catholique, and Utopia 56. A number of foreign NGOs were also present, including Help Refugees (working in partnership with L'Auberge des Migrants), Refugee Community Kitchen, Calais Kitchens, Belgium Kitchen, Calais Action, Care4Calais, and Refugee Info Bus.[57][13] Between them they provided food, material aid, legal information, sanitation and shelter.[58][59] Educational services were provided by Jungle Books, the Ecole Laïque chemins des dunes and by Edlumino.[57][60] Specialist services for women and children were run by the Unofficial Women's and Children's Centre[61] and the Refugee Youth Service.[62][63] NGOs also provided recreation:[62] such as a boxing club[64] and the Good Chance Theatre,[65] which ran from a dome doubling as a community space for other activities.[66]

Containers

The camp in January 2016

In January 2016, French authorities opened a new area in the northeastern part of the jungle.[67] They had earlier cleared tents and shacks from this area and erected 125 metal shipping containers in their place, converting them into housing units for up to 1,500 migrants.[67] Shipping containers, rather than more permanent structures, were chosen because the sand dunes are unfit for permanent foundations.[67] The containers were white and furnished with bunk beds, windows, and heaters, but had no running water or sanitary facilities (toilets and showers were made available at an existing nearby facility). At the time, Reuters described the entire jungle as "squalid" and "unsanitary" and estimated its total population to be 4,000.[67]

Many migrants subsequently moved into the container housing, but some resisted the French government's ultimatum to leave their makeshift housing and live in the container area, citing its spartan setup, lack of communal areas, and their fears that once in the new housing area, they would be blocked from going to Britain.[68][69] This concern arose because the containers were enclosed by a metal fence and it was necessary to give a fingerprint to gain access. Under the Dublin Regulation an asylum seeker must seek asylum in the EU Member State where they first gave their fingerprints and they may not seek asylum elsewhere, thus some migrants were concerned that if their fingerprints were taken in France they would then not be able to claim asylum in the UK. The authorities stated the fingerprints were taken for security reasons.[67][68]

French protesters in Calais hold banners saying "Reimmigrate" and "Diversity is a code word for white genocide", 8 November 2015

A month after the demolition, the Refugee Youth Service (RYS) reported that while a little over half of the migrant children on its caseload had been relocated into French children's homes, another third—approximately 60 children—could no longer be located by child protection officers since being removed from the camp.[105] The mass disappearance of these children from RYS surveillance echoed a similar loss of contact with nearly 130 children earlier in the year during the March 2016 demolition of the southern part of the Jungle, raising global concerns of exploitation and trafficking.[106]

A few months after the demolition of the Jungle's northern zone, migrants began to return to the area, particularly those who had been refused asylum by the British government. According to figures provided by Le Monde, of the 1,934 minors who had left Calais in 2016, only 468 had been accepted to the U.K., leaving the vast majority of these underage refugees either stranded or missing.[107] Help Refugees reported that by mid-January 2017 between 500 and 1,000 migrants, mostly unaccompanied minors, were living rough in Calais.[13]

In February 2017, the mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, faced global controversy for signing a decree banning the distribution of meals to refugees who had returned to the Jungle in order to prevent the reformation of "fixing points" (points de fixation) for refugees to regather.[108] Although she claimed the ban to be a "humanly difficult" decision, Bouchart justified this administrative action by citing the harm that had been inflicted upon Calais and its residents as a result of the informal settlements that had long existed on the city's outskirts. The act was denounced by humanitarian organizations including Utopia 56 and L'Auberge des Migrants, who argued that humanitarian aid to refugees residing in Calais would provide a safer and healthier environment for refugees and permanent residents, particularly by preventing hunger-driven theft and infectious diseases.

Human Rights Watch published a report in July 2017 called Like Living in Hell, documenting what it described as continuing human rights abuses by the police against children and adult migrants in the region. It stated that nine months after the eviction, around 500 migrants remained living around Calais. Having interviewed over 60 migrants and more than 20 aid workers, the report noted that police, particularly the CRS (French riot police), were routinely spraying migrants, their possessions and their food and water with pepper spray.[109]

Since the demolition of the Jungle in 2016, there has been a policy of "no fixation points" for migrants to settle in, aiming to stop another large camp from forming.[110] Police, including the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), and clearance teams regularly evict migrants from their makeshift camps with new encampments later forming in another or the same location.[111][112][113][114] The encampments are dangerous due to exposure and poor living conditions resulting in health difficulties.[115][116][117][118] The United Nations has repeatedly spoken out about what its experts say are unacceptable conditions for migrants in the area.[119][120][121] A hostile environment is created for the migrants,[122][123] with migrants and NGOs supporting migrants[124] reporting violence from the police[114][125][109][126] and the local administration occasionally banning the distribution of food and water to migrants.[127][128]

The site of the Calais Jungle was turned into a nature reserve.[129][130][122][131]

• 2015: Written with Nadene Ghouri, The Lightless Sky is Gulwali Passarlay's memoir of his journey from Afghanistan to the UK as a twelve year old. Passarlay's time in the Jungle features in the book.[132][133]
• 2016: Jérôme Sessini made a photo report for Magnum Photos about the Jungle.[134]
• 2016: Comic book author Lisa Mandel and sociologist Yasmine Bouagga depict the daily lives of migrants in the Jungle through a blog, Les Nouvelles de la jungle, using interviews and observations from their personal excursions to Calais. They later compiled the comic strips into a book titled Les Nouvelles de la jungle de Calais, which won the Coup de Cœur 2017 of the Centre national de la littérature pour la jeunesse (BnF).[135]
• 2017: Nicolas Klotz and Élisabeth Perceval launched a documentary film on the Calais Jungle: The Wild Frontier (original title: L'héroïque lande, la frontière brûle, France, 225 min.).[136]
• 2017: Joe Robertson and Joe Murphy, who ran the Good Chance theatre in the camp, wrote a play entitled The Jungle. It premiered at the Young Vic in London and has since been performed in New York and San Francisco.[137]
• 2017: Segments of Ai Weiwei's general release documentary film Human Flow were filmed in the Jungle.[138]
• 2017: Pooja Puri's debut novel The Jungle tells the story of a teenager in the camp.[139][140]
• 2017: Threads from the Refugee Crisis, an award-winning graphic novel by Kate Evans, depicts the work of volunteers in the Jungle and other encampments in northern France and their interactions with residents of the camps.[141][142]
• 2018: The documentary film Calais Children: A Case to Answer made by Sue Clayton followed unaccompanied children before and after the final eviction.[143]
• 2019: Roads, a film starring Fionn Whitehead and Stéphane Bak and directed by Sebastian Schipper, includes scenes set in migrant encampments and NGO workplaces in post-Jungle Calais.[144][145][146]
• 2019: The Jungle was the subject of a major temporary exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum titled Lande: the Calais "Jungle" and Beyond.[147][148]

• Basroch refugee camp
• Channel Tunnel: Illegal immigration
• Environmental racism in Europe
• Illegal immigration in the United Kingdom
• La Linière
• List of border crossing points in France
• Schengen Agreement
• Welcome (2009 film)

Books

• Calais Writers (2017). Voices from the 'Jungle': Stories from the Calais Refugee Camp. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 9780745399683.
• Agier, Michel; et al. (2019). The Jungle: Calais's Camps and Migrants. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 9781509530601.
• Hicks, Dan; Mallet, Sarah, eds. (2019). Lande: The Calais 'Jungle' and Beyond. Bristol: Policy Press. ISBN 9781529207873. Retrieved 17 March 2020.

Reports

• Özlem Hangul; et al. (2016). Unsafe Borderlands: Filling Date Gaps Relating to Women in the Calais Camp (PDF) (Report). Refugee Rights Europe. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
• Nicholas Cotterill; et al. (2016). The Long Wait: Filling data gaps relating to refugees and displaced people in the Calais camp (PDF) (Report). Refugee Rights Europe. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
• Fenella Henderson-Howat, Marta Welander (2016). Still Waiting: Filling additional information gaps relating to the Calais camp (PDF) (Report). Refugee Rights Europe. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
• Christy Braham; et al. (2016). Still Here: Exploring further dynamics of the Calais camp (PDF) (Report). Refugee Rights Europe. Retrieved 17 March 2020.