Reporting on our trip to Calais

This is some of what we reported from our trip to "The Jungle" refugee camp in Calais, France

Conditions are bad in Calais because it is an illegal camp.  This is NOT typical of refugee aid in the rest of France or Europe.

Refugees receive aid by REGISTERING with a country where they are claiming asylum.  They then stay in that country until their case has been decided.  Refugees and immigrants in Calais have not registered because they are hoping to go to the UK.  

This presents us with some dilemmas: Church guideline state :

“Priesthood leaders should ensure that all proposed projects are in accordance with established laws and are appropriately coordinated with local government officials.

“Local laws may restrict whether priesthood leaders may offer undocumented immigrants food, shelter or other welfare assistance . . . . “

No one is coordinating refugee aid to "The Jungle."

 The men (95% men, 5% women and children in the camp) living in Calais are all there because they are trying to get into the UK, thru the chunnel. They will NOT register with the French government because they do not want to remain in France. They try to hide on lorries (trucks) or on ferries or even walk thru the chunnel.  All of that is illegal and quite dangerous.  


Just last month, 150 men working together pushed over a fence (there are 15 foot fences with razor wire on top enclosing the chunnel structures and all the roads approaching them) and rushed onto a car ferry about to leave for Dover.  The police had to ferret them out of every nook and cranny of the ferry. Phillipe, the owner of the B&B where we stayed, is a volunteer coast guard member and they were called in to rescue anyone who jumped off the ferry.

Because the refugees won't register, the usual aid societies cannot enter the camp or they will lose their rights to help in the rest of the country. MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without  Borders) is only there for the Winter emergency.  They are leaving within weeks.

We took ~600 blankets to Calais and met the Canterbury stake there. President Hunt and his stake brought donated items and structures, homes to assemble in the camp. We met Jxxxxx and Cxxxxx who run the unnamed agency we were working with.  They were very gracious and helpful. After unloading and touring their warehouse, we drove over and toured L’Auberge warehouse kitchen and building site. We helped insulate panels that were made into refugee shelters the next day.  At dinner we talked with other volunteers and members.

Saturday Sister Stay worked sorting and packaging. Elder Stay helped load the distribution Lorries.  Later we drove with C and G into ‘the jungle’ where we distributed the bags we packed all morning.  We met with Acted who installed the water system in the camp and MSF.  We later met the Ipswich Stake and their leaders. Great group.

There appears to be no daily or weekly coordination between charities. The camp is chaotically divided into generally Syrian, Somalian, Eritrean, Iranian, Iraqi, and Afghan areas, with internally picked leaders for each area.  Agencies try to arrange deliveries with area leaders, but communication is difficult.   


 Deliveries may go to the same nationality campsite that another agency just delivered to hours or moments before. This causes jealousy between different ethnicities in camp, if they feel they are not receiving their fair share.  On Friday, during the 6th delivery of the day, someone angry about not getting their turn at deliveries attacked the delivery truck and broke the windscreen with a fire extinguisher.

Rumors are that the mayor of Calais intends to clear out all unregistered squatters -3000 men- as soon as winter is over March 1. It is not legal to make refugees move in the winter.  Only registered men and families will be left in container homes in Calais. These open only with finger/ handprint so many men won't sign up to live in them. 

 Deliveries into camp require lots of people for security. People line up holding hands to create a path to the van, stand to secure the doors, keep a lookout for problems, etc.  



Driving people into camps in several private cars is problematic: there is no parking space, there are terrible road to drive on, 

L’Auberge is bigger, better organized, better supported, has better facilities, They have a kitchen where they cook thousands of meals a day using volunteer chefs who cook ethnic foods using fresh ingredients which they deliver to three distribution kitchens in camp. They also receive bulk foods (like onions) which they distribute to camp kitchens. They most need canned tuna, garbanzo beans and white or kidney beans.  Don't send pasta: the refugees can't cook it and don't like it.

L’Auberge also has a construction bldg. At this time, fewer than 200 tents remain in the camp in Calais. All others have been replaced with homes with a frame structure, insulation and waterproof tarps and pallet floors.



  In the building facility, they estimate that there will be no more need for new housing after February, unless the government chooses to demolish the existent homes.

Acted is an international agency that provides the infrastructure for the water supply to the camp (water is paid for by the French government), along with porta-johns and some drainage ditches. Acted has installed three wash stations with troughs and cold running water. Some runoff collects in small 'lakes' which need to be pumped out weekly: that costs 400 - 500 euros each time and is not sustainable financially. Sewers and ditches are not allowed as site of the camp (which was a dump) was never cleared of unexploded ordinance after World War II. If digging drainage ditches was to uncover a mine, the entire camp would have to be evacuated. Acted wants to put in hot showers but cannot due to these drainage issues.

The UK stakes are great. They are collecting and bring a lot of donations. Volunteers (Ipswitch and Canterbury) this weekend built a home, sorted goods, packed and distributed bags of clothing, hygiene products, blankets, etc. They interacted well with other non-LDS volunteers. They brought some non-member friends (Kent college students, for example) with them.

Donations : It would be more effective to box up only what charities actually need in Calais or elsewhere. There is NO need in Calais for any more women's or children's clothing as they have tons of stuff in warehouses going unused. The charities then ship tons of items back to England to be donated to domestic charities there, returning the unneeded items in the volunteers’ vehicles otherwise going home empty.

What men need : 1.Rain coats  2. Waterproof warm coats 3. Shoes or Boots smaller than a size 42  4. Underwear (small and medium sizes only: everyone loses weight walking 3000 km across Europe)  5. Thermal underwear    6. Socks

All donations should be sorted by item and by size and boxed in standard sized well marked boxes, not just dumped into trash bags.

Lovely couple from Manchester.  They said I should be glad my grandpa left there 100 years ago.

Photos: stores, restaurants, church, church being demolished, distribution center, cooking.

There are more camps near Calais other than the Jungle.  In Dunkirk / Grande Synthe there are many smaller camps in worse condition than in the Jungle, which gets lots of media attention and thus, lots of donations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSRNISnXFSM&feature=youtu.be

http://www.thelocal.fr/20151020/refugee-camp-northern-france-living-in-squalor-calais-dunkirk

 Like most people in this camp of between 800 and 1,000 people - most of the them Kurds - want to go to Britain.  “Germany (which has a far more welcoming attitude to migrants than Britain) is no good for us. The language is too hard and we don’t have any relations there, like we do in England,” said Kader.

But he said that after their long trip through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans, they had no money left to pay the people smugglers who hang around the camp and who charge hundreds and sometimes thousands of euros for help in sneaking into the back of a lorry on its way to Britain.

The settlement in Grande-Synthe has existed since 2006 but for years had fewer than 100 migrants. Since September its population has exploded.

The people smugglers decided to move some of their clients to less congested spots as Calais become over-crowded and after security at the ferry port and the Eurotunnel terminal was boosted after chaotic scenes this summer that saw hundreds of migrants try nightly to clamber onto trains heading to England.

Another camp in Téteghem, on the other side of Dunkirk, now houses around 500 migrants. In another camp further inland, 300 migrants, most of them Eritreans, live in equally insalubrious conditions as they wait for their chance to get to the UK.

Other smaller camps, some with just a few dozen migrants, are dotted along the motorways leading to the coast.