A week full circle

On Thursday Abdel Kader Hanna died attempting to leave Calais; the Syrian was electrocuted while trying to cross the channel tunnel.

Saturday saw another demonstration in Calais. Rather than the few-hundred of last month's protest, this time around two or three thousand individuals marched from the main 'Jungle' camp to the ferry port, in solidarity, calling to open the borders and for better treatment of refugees. An open-backed lorry doubled as a stage and carted a sound-system along the walk; speeches had been prepared by those involved, both volunteers and refugees; Charlie Winston performed a surprise gig in musical support; and drums were banged and chants rhythmically sung. Whatever one's feelings about this march and its organisation,

it demonstrated a uniting of forces and a shared demand for change, as individuals from different backgrounds and areas, already in Calais or having travelled for the occasion, united and made noise. Ironically, this demonstration seems to have been less widely covered by the media than August's smaller protest...

On Monday, police and gendarmes stormed Calais' remaining non-Jungle camps[1]. In the early hours of the morning (somewhere around 7.30am, according to reports) they evicted the predominately Syrian squats, tearing down tents and forcing their inhabitants to leave in haste, without time to gather their possessions. Reports from refugees and witnesses speak of official papers, passports and family photographs being left behind, before being taken by the authorities to the rubbish dump, while police 'encouraged' the squatters to move by spraying tear gas into eyes.

This continued towards the Jungle, as the authorities went on to bulldoze the tents that were spilling out of the densely packed camp. I was not in Calais to witness Monday's events, and am primarily relaying others' first-hand accounts. On Saturday, my first return to Calais since August, I noted how vastly the camp had grown in the space of a few weeks; the inner Jungle area has become even more densely populated, and so tents had been set-up on the wasteland running under the motorway bridge entrance to the Jungle. This was the camp now being destroyed, prompting questions of where the new evictees should go; while not permitted to stay in the town centre, the Jungle, a so-called 'tolerated' area of land (named as such by the state) is not only cut off from the town by six kilometres and industrial roads, unfit for living as an ex-town-dump on sand-dunes with extremely limited water, electricity, lighting, toilets and shelter, but it is becoming increasingly and impossibly populated, as new people arrive, and others are evicted from elsewhere.

On Tuesday the violence continued, this time in the Jungle itself. Although the external squats had been evicted the previous day, the police continued to fire tear-gas bombs into the main camp, in a manner that witnesses described as appearing arbitrary, the gas landing near densely populated areas, including those inhabited by small children and their mothers. While a small number of those living in the Jungle retaliated by throwing stones, perhaps perpetuating the violent scenes, lines of armed police with shields (see photographs here, for example) are a clearly incomparable force.

I am at a loss to understand what was intended by this series of events. Why didn't the authorities employ less aggressive ways of evicting the the town squats and tents outlying the Jungle? Why didn't they use a less illegal and inhumane way of moving tents and personal possessions, rather than destroying with force and machinery? Is this a warning, a statement that aims at keeping newcomers back? Is it a reaction to the week's earlier demonstration, showing that 'the people' will not have their voice, that those in power are, indeed, in power?

On Wednesday night, another person died in the Eurotunnel. As I write, all that has been reported is that the person was male, probably from East Africa, and probably a teenager. I shiver as I think of the lone children I've met and know in Calais.

The week has come full-circle; it has been momentous, moving, exhausting for all involved, and frustrating. Two unnecessary deaths mark the edges of a period of passion, energy and turbulence from protesters, volunteers, refugees and police, in a sobering way. While the authorities' actions may be intended to dispel any further public reaction, while media coverage of these deaths, protests and brutality has been limited, I cannot think of any other step than to share and spread this information to the wider public.

1 There used to be more of these smaller camps, but in April they too were evicted with the creation of 'the new Jungle'.

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