Calais jungle

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Tents of the "Jungle of Calais" (2015)
Position on the map

The jungle of Calais ( French jungle de Calais , English Calais jungle ) is a tent city with temporary accommodation near the French city of Calais , which became important during the refugee crisis in Europe from 2015 . More than 9,000 migrants camped there in August 2016, waiting for an opportunity to continue their journey through the Eurotunnel to Great Britain . From October 24th to 26th, 2016, the refugee camp was completely cleared and then officially closed. A little later, however, people began to gather again in the region.

history

Since the closure of the Sangatte Red Cross camp in 2002, there have been illegal camps in the region around Calais where migrants are waiting to be allowed to enter the UK.

2015 - October 2016

Calais Jungle, 17th January 2016

At the end of 2015, up to 6,000 people lived on the site of a former garbage dump on the outskirts of Calais. Due to the hygienic conditions, a court ordered in November 2015 that the conditions in the camp had to be improved. The French government ( Valls II cabinet ) therefore decided in January 2016 to set up 125 containers for around 1,500 people. In February 2016, a French court ordered a partial eviction due to the hygienic conditions, the insecurity and violence. The evacuation of the southern part of the camp in the heathland began on February 29th. There were massive riots by camp residents and political activists against the police. The responsible Prefect Fabienne Buccio attributed the riots to activists from No border and a group of around 150 refugees who had been manipulated by the activists. However, the majority of the people concerned behaved peacefully.

The number of people in the camp doubled to around 9,000 or 10,000 between June and the end of August 2016.

The mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart , demanded the use of the army to bring the situation under control after migrants from the jungle attacked police and truck drivers in mid-August 2016 . The police are understaffed and overwhelmed and can no longer keep the “ gangs of migrants ” who run the crime-ridden camp under control. The government in Paris underestimated the situation. The laws of the republic would have to be enforced.

The safety precautions at the Eurotunnel have been significantly strengthened. It has become more difficult for the refugees to get to England.

On September 6, 2016, truck drivers and farmers with tractors blocked the motorway and access roads in the region around Calais, for example to the port. Slogans like: "The citizens of Calais are imprisoned, the refugees are free" were on their banners. They protested against the government's inaction. The election campaign for the 2017 presidential election had begun; the conservative opposition (including ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen , the head of the National Front Party ) has made the limitation of migration one of its main election campaign issues.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has set the goal of creating more than 12,000 places in centers d'accueil et d'orientation (CAO) elsewhere in France by the end of 2016 . On September 26, 2016, during a visit to Calais, President François Hollande spoke of no longer wanting to tolerate the improvised camp: "We have to completely and definitely dissolve the camp."

Under the legislation won by Lord Dubs in May 2016, the Home Office began interviewing around 800 underage refugees in the jungle who had previously claimed to have relatives in the UK . Around 200 of them were brought to England in October 2016 in the course of the looming eviction. Interior Minister Rudd announced , however, that future applications of this kind, made after the day of the eviction, will be rejected.

The evacuation of the camp was carried out between October 24 and 26, 2016, although it was originally scheduled for one week. The attempt by eleven aid organizations to have the evacuation prevented by the Lille Administrative Court by means of an urgent application failed on October 18. Around 1250 deployed police officers distributed around 6500 refugees to around 160 reception centers across France. Before the planned eviction, there were violent clashes between refugees and the police, and a fire broke out during the evacuation.

In the days leading up to the eviction, 400 unaccompanied refugee minors were housed in makeshift containers in Calais. Great Britain had agreed to take in those minors who already had relatives there (see also: Dubs bill ). The media and the aid organization Doctors Without Borders reported on the day after the eviction that unaccompanied minors were wandering through the camp without orientation. Others were judged to be adults on the face of it. The procedure does not correspond to the assurances given in advance.

New formations from December 2016

Two months after the closure, six camps had formed in the Calais region at the end of December 2016, where migrants who hoped to gain access to the United Kingdom were gathering again. According to the press, many people were residents of the previous jungle, but had now left the reception facilities to which the French authorities had initially transported them after the closure in October.

On the night of June 20, 2017, migrants blocked the A16 motorway south of the former jungle with tree stumps in order to force trucks to stop. A driver burned after a rear-end collision at the blockade in his vehicle.

In August 2017, helpers estimated that around 750 people had now returned to the Calais-Dunkirk region, hoping to gain access to the United Kingdom from there. People would camp out in the open and suffer from related diseases.

At the beginning of 2018, around 600 migrants had gathered in Calais, who, taken care of by aid organizations, hoped to find a way to England. The situation escalated when the number rose by 200 within a short period of time because many people had apparently believed rumors that a renegotiated border agreement between France and the United Kingdom in mid-January 2018 would allow them to cross. The growing frustration culminated in outbreaks of violence and on February 1, five migrants were shot dead by an Afghan. A little later, around 150 migrants from Eritrea fought with those from Afghanistan in a nearby industrial area. Also in September and October 2018, gatherings near Grande-Synthe , mainly Kurds from Iraq, were relocated to accommodations in order to remove them from the smugglers.

In the course of 2019, after a heavily frequented meeting point was cleared, an agglomeration of several camps formed. Like the previous camps, he was hit by police evictions several times a week, often accompanied by violence such as the use of CA gas and batons. Whereas the number of migrants living in Calais between 2016 and 2019 was roughly 400 to 700 people, it rose to 900 to 1000 in winter 2019/20, the vast majority of whom lived in the jungle. In addition, around 400 to 500 people came to Grande-Synthe.

At the beginning of the corona pandemic in early March 2020, this situation remained unchanged. As in previous years, the proportion of physical illnesses and psychological stress among the residents was high. Local aid organizations therefore pointed out the increased risk of infection for those affected at an early stage. After the detection of five cases of infection with the corona virus, an evacuation of some of the residents of the jungle to accommodations outside the border region began in early April 2020. For the people remaining in Calais, the supply situation, physical and mental health and living conditions deteriorated rapidly, while the daily police evictions - resulting in renewed homelessness - continued despite the lockdown since the beginning of 2020. A group of Eritrean refugees in the jungle denounced in an open letter an increase in attacks by the French police unit CRS.

origin

According to estimates, around 25 percent of the people in February 2016 came from Afghanistan and Pakistan , 20 percent from Eritrea and Ethiopia , another 20 percent from Sudan and around ten percent from Syria .

documentary

At the Film Festival 2017 in Cannes was Vanessa Redgrave documentary Sea Sorrow premiered. With her film, in which she deals emotionally and with commitment to the conditions in the camp in Calais, and in which Lord Dubs , who survived the Holocaust with the help of the child transport from Czechoslovakia, takes a position on the refugee problem in Europe, she appeals Politicians and citizens, especially to take care of the refugee children.

See also

literature

  • Michel Agier: The "Jungle of Calais". About life in a refugee camp . transcript, Bielefeld 2020, ISBN 978-3-8376-4734-1 .
  • Müller, Thomas / Schlüper, Uwe: Dynamics of the Jungles. Calais and the Euro-British border regime. Bordermonitoring, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-947870-00-4 .
  • Müller, Thomas / Schlüper, Uwe / Zinflou, Sascha: Crossing the canal. Calais, Brexit and the boat passages to Great Britain, bordermonitoring, Munich 2019.
  • Emmanuel Carrère : Lettre à une Calaisienne. Revue XXI , April 2016. Three drawings by Aline Zalko
    • Übers. Claudia Hamm: Letter to a zoo keeper from Calais. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2017
  • Olivier Norek: Entre deux mondes. Éditions France loisirs, Paris 2018, ISBN 978-2-298-14339-3 .
    • Translated by Alexandra Hölscher: All of this never happened. Karl Blessing, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-89667-634-4 (detective novel)

Web links

Commons : Jungles of Calais  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

The German-language weblog JungleOfCalais has been providing information about migration and border regimes in northern France and Belgium with a focus on Calais and Grande-Synthe since March 2020.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Angelique Chrisafis: French court rejects bid to demolish shops at Jungle refugee camp The Guardian from August 12, 2016
  2. ↑ www.aargauerzeitung.ch February 21, 2016: “Not a slum, the refugee camp is an open garbage dump” (detailed description of the hygienic grievances)
  3. ↑ a b c “Jungle of Calais” completely cleared after a major fire . dpa , October 26, 2016, accessed on August 3, 2020 . .
  4. ↑ a b Angelique Chrisafis: At night it's like a horror movie '- inside Calais's official shantytown . The Guardian, April 6, 2015
  5. ^ Court orders improvements in the "jungle" of Calais to Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3, 2015
  6. ↑ Migrant shelter made of shipping containers opens in France's Calais , Reuters, January 11, 2016
  7. ^ Refugees: Police clear parts of the Calais jungle , Spiegel Online, February 29, 2016
  8. ^ Refugees in France: Riots in Calais - new evacuation team on the march , Spiegel Online, March 1, 2016
  9. ↑ www.independent.co.uk of March 1, 2016: Calais Jungle: 'Dangerous' UK activists don't care about refugees, says official responsible for clearing camp
  10. ↑ www.thesun.co.uk
  11. ↑ Laura Mowat: Calais mayor says migrant violence 'OUT OF CONTROL' as UK truckers urge troops on streets. The Daily Express of August 19, 2016
  12. ↑ a b The French are gradually losing patience
  13. ↑ lefigaro.fr September 12, 2016: Comment le gouvernement veut répartir les migrants de Calais en région
  14. ↑ Calais jungle before eviction , Sächsische Zeitung, September 27, 2016
  15. ^ Alan Travis, Lisa O'Carroll and Caroline Davies: UK to take hundreds more children from Calais, home secretary says The Guardian, October 24, 2015
  16. ^ A b Refugee camp in Calais: 'There is a threat of a chase' , Spiegel Online . Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  17. ↑ (afp, dpa): Refugee camp in Calais is cleared Deutsche Welle from October 18, 2016
  18. ↑ Jungle of Calais: Unaccompanied minors suffer the eviction. Doctors Without Borders, October 27, 2016, accessed October 27, 2016 .
  19. ↑ May Bulman: "Hundreds of refugees return to 'secret camps' near Calais in bid to reach the UK" The Independent of December 26, 2016
  20. ^ PA: "Van driver killed in fireball crash after migrants block Calais road with tree trunks" Daily Telegraph from June 20, 2017
  21. ↑ May Bulman: "Refugees in Calais suffering trench foot as squalid condition take their toll" The Independent of August 27, 2017
  22. ↑ "Border treaty blamed for Calais migrant surge that has led to violence" The Guardian, February 3, 2018
  23. ^ "Four migrants in critical condition after Calais brawl" The Guardian of February 2, 2018
  24. ↑ French police cleared the "wild" migrant camp in Deutsche Welle on October 23, 2018
  25. ↑ Müller, Thomas: The actuality of the jungle. Preliminary remark to the German edition, in: Agier, Michel et al .: The "Dschungel von Calais". About life in a refugee camp. transcript, Bielefeld 2020, pp. 9-33, here: pp. 27ff. 2020.
  26. ↑ See the reports of this period on the blog JungleOfCalais: Further deterioration of living conditions / "They dorn't think that we are humand" / At the beginning of the epidemic / Evacuations, numbers games, loss of reality. Retrieved April 25, 2020 .
  27. ↑ spiegel.de February 25, 2016: Refugee camp "Dschungel" in Calais: "Life is better than in Sudan"
  28. ↑ Peter Bradshaw: Sea Sorrow review - Vanessa Redgrave's ungainly, heartfelt essay on the refugee crisis in: The Guardian , May 27, 2017, accessed August 24, 2017
  29. ↑ 3 drawings and a short extract from the text, 1 drawing

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 9.7 "  N , 1 ° 54 ′ 13.3"  E