Logo

 

Banner Image:   Baptist-Times-banner-2000x370-
Template Mode:   Baptist Times
Icon
    Post     Tweet


A new jungle? 

 

Refugees remain in Calais, despite last year's clearing of the camp there, writes Simon Jones - and conditions are worse than before 

 

Calais
 

Well, it has been a while, but here is a reflection on my recent visit to Calais. I caught up with friends in the warehouse, met new people in the Catholic worker house and went shopping with my favourite monk (everyone should have a favourite monk!) and I went to see where food distribution takes place on a daily basis.

On a piece of waste ground at the back of Calais’ Zone Industrielle des Dunes, a snaking line of a hundred or so people queues for food. A similar number sit in groups eating, talking, some catching up on sleep. 

This is not the new jungle, but it is a rumour of it. Desperate people tell stories of being pepper sprayed last night by the police, of running for most of the hours of darkness to avoid the CRS vans. They gather here seeking a break from the monotony of dodging the authorities, a chance to catch their breath, tell stories. But there are no shelters here - bar one (of which more in a moment) - and no evidence of any emerging. This is just a place for an hour or so's respite before the trudging continues. So it is no new jungle.

A gaggle of volunteers at the back of a transit doles out rice and beans and salad. The Calais Refugee Kitchen works with miracles with scant resources and a skeleton crew. 

Away from the groups eating, other groups huddle round jerry cans of water 'showering' as best they can, squatting with shampooed hair and cupping water over their heads. There has been an outbreak of scabies, an infection caused by lack of sanitation and living in the same clothes for days on end. With showers harder to come by because the authorities harass those groups that provide them, laundry services all but non-existent and new clothes in shorter supply than a year ago, this low-level plague will only get worse.

A CRS van cruises by every 15 minutes or so but doesn't stop. So we sit and chat with a mixed group of Eritreans and Afghans, talking as best we can about the previous night and how long they have been in Calais, how often they have tried to get to the UK, and where they are going to try to sleep today or tonight before they try again. 

There's an Afghan family living in a tumble-down wooden caravan (the aforementioned single shelter). A mum and dad and three children, grateful that Secours Catholique will take them off for showers. As months give way to years, they wait for a government that will pay them the attention they are looking for. Meanwhile the children play and run and hug Mariam and eat oranges, juice streaking dirty faces and hands. Their hope breaks your heart, their plight raises a fierce anger in your gut, the desire to break down the fences keeping them from the safety and security we all take for granted.

Our wall - £2m-ish of UK tax payers money lining the A16 to the ferry port - speaks of our attitude to these people: a problem to be kept at arms length by concrete and razor wire, increased armed patrols, pepper spray and harassment.

And this group of a couple of hundred, subdued, wary but smiling when we squat with clutches of half a dozen or so, welcoming us into their conversation, wanting to tell us as much of their story as they have language for, wanting to know who we are and where we're from, interested in making connection with the world beyond the constant search for shelter in the storm of indifference.

But this is not the new jungle. That had been a place of relative safety, somewhere, at least temporarily, to call home, a shack, a bed, a kitchen, and the rudiments of community. That was swept away in a wave of cleansing zeal by a prefecture which assumed that if they washed these people from the land, they would disappear.

But they are here, large as life, still determined, still amazingly good natured, still steely in their determination to cross over to the promised land. 

And where are we? Most of us are home, tucking our children into bed, entertaining friends for a meal, enjoying a night out, settling in front of the TV, safe, secure and doing all the things those in the snaking line would rather be doing given half a chance.


Image | Radek Homola | Unsplash

 

Simon Jones is ministry team leader at Bromley Baptist Church, and made regular trips to minister in the Calais "Jungle" before its destruction last year. A version of this article first appeared on his blog, A Sideways Glance, and is used with permission


Related:

 

 

 

 

Baptist Times, 19/05/2017
    Post     Tweet
A bridge of hope? The Baptist witness in Israel and Palestine
Baptists in Israel and Palestine are a unique bridge between different people and cultures in the region, writes Mark Hirst, who recently visited Baptists there. He shares this and other reflections to help fuel our prayers
Gaza: our voices do make a difference
The news is indeed dreadful, writes David Nelson - but showing solidarity does have an impact
Bruno and other friends: encounters and reflections  
Baptist minister Ivan King explains why he has written a book honouring some of the ordinary people who have welcomed him into their world as a pastor
'The Inter Faith Network is in peril - please support it'
The government is withdrawing funding from the Inter Faith Network, leading to its potential closure. Paul Weller, a member of the Baptists Together Inter Faith Working Group, is encouraging Baptists to urgently protest the decision
Look outward in Lent 
For many Lent has become a time for self-examination and for deepening one’s devotional life. But the call to Christian discipleship is to look away from oneself - so let’s experiment in new ways of sharing our faith with others this year
'Remember the call I gave you...'  
While all the speakers at Fresh Streams 2024 highlighted how we are living in a time of significant change, there was a clear message from God too, writes first-time attender Simon Evans-White
     The Baptist Times 
    Posted: 12/02/2024
    Posted: 22/12/2023
    Posted: 16/12/2023
    Posted: 19/10/2023
    Posted: 19/10/2023
    Posted: 10/10/2023
    Posted: 26/09/2023
    Posted: 23/09/2023
    Posted: 20/09/2023
    Posted: 04/09/2023
    Posted: 17/07/2023
    Posted: 23/05/2023
    Posted: 17/05/2023
    Posted: 03/05/2023