Tag Archives: Calais

Fortress Europe, Oral History

Voices from the ‘Jungle’

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AntiNote: The following are quotes from people living in the Calais Refugee Camp, aka. the Jungle, between the 2nd-7th October 2015. They have intentionally been left unedited and without provision of further context.

« Welcome to the new city ! »
-A passer-by

« The jungle now is fucked . But Darfur is fucked too much ! »
-Yusef, from Sudan
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« My name Hassan . When I go to UK will be Jack .
Now i’m Jack of the jungle ! »
-Hassan, from Iraq . Offering tea. Continue reading Voices from the ‘Jungle’ →

Fortress Europe, Motus, Oral History

A Glimpse into the Jungle: IWS Report from Calais

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Calais and the Unwelcoming EU

From the blog of the International Women’s Space Berlin
20 September 2015
(original post)

In 1989 I travelled from Calais to Dover. Whilst on the ferry, I requested a visa. The officer didn’t trust me and as we approached the UK, I was sent to a room, where a dog and a few officers sniffed around me and my luggage. For hours, maybe five, I answered all their racist questions. Eventually they let me in, and I lived in Britain for longer than the standard six months’ visa they had given me. In the end I was deported and banned from entering the UK for the next five years.

This summer, after more than two decades, I returned to Calais. I wanted to see how far the EU had developed their unwelcoming attitudes towards foreigners, specially non-whites, non-Europeans, like me. I went to what is called ‘the Jungle,’ where thousands of refugees, mainly from Eritrea, Syria, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan, survive crammed into small, wrecked tents, built on dunes, close to one of the roads that access the Eurotunnel. Continue reading A Glimpse into the Jungle: IWS Report from Calais →

Fortress Europe, Motus

Stop the Killings in Calais!

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Source: Calais Migrant Solidarity blog, an invaluable resource. Please visit them.

26/30 July 2015

One recent death here in Calais was that of a young Eritrean woman hit by a car on the A16 while trying to cross the road. While this is being reported in the news as a terrible accident, information we have been getting from those who witnessed the tragedy shows otherwise. Witnesses say that immediately before this young woman lost her life she had been in contact with the police. They say that she, along with a group of five other people, had been caught by police and then sprayed in their faces with CS gas. Afterward the people then fled across the highway, one by one. However, because the gassing had irritated her eyes so much, the young woman could not see when she went to cross the highway. She did not see and could not avoid the car speeding towards her, which hit her.

While in this case the police’s actions directly led to one woman losing her life, every day they are putting people in extremely dangerous situations. Continue reading Stop the Killings in Calais! →

Demopolis, Divide et impera, Motus

Confluences

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As hard as it is to look on the bright side at the moment, we must acknowledge intriguing connections currently being made between disparate and distant movements. Our task now is to make these confluences of action and intent—this growing solidarity across ideological and geographical chasms—much more concrete, combative, and contagious.

By Antidote’s Ed Sutton

By nearly any account, it has been a devastating summer, and a tough year all around.

Continue reading Confluences →