The site of a protest by Syrian refugees in Calais.
Calais is a depressing seaside town in the north of France. You might know it for its grey skies, or from being eight and watching your parents argue about whether the rest of the francs should be spent on hypermarche Bier d’Or before getting the Eurostar home.
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But the port town is also notorious for something else: Being a terrible place to find yourself if you’re a refugee hoping to cross the Channel to England. Since the sprawling Sangatte refugee centre closed 11 years ago, the official line has been that there are no longer any migrants hanging around in Calais – that because the authorities shut down the camp where they used to stay, everybody figured they should just go home and sit it out in their various war-torn countries. Shockingly, that doesn’t seem to really be the case, with recent figures estimating that 700 to 2,000 migrants are currently living in abhorrent conditions in and around Calais.
Most have fled violence in their home countries before embarking on long and perilous journeys across Europe. It took a month for Joe, a teacher from Damascus, to make it from Syria to Calais via Sicily – where at least 300 African migrants died last week – and the trip cost him €6,000. He has now spent four weeks in the northern French town. “We have no shelter at all, we are all just in the street. We’re under really bad circumstances here,” Joe told me. “We have just one meal in the day, because we don’t have any money. And we’re in the street, you know – no shower, no toilets, no nothing.”
Calais is only 45 kilometres from Dover, but crossing the Channel is dangerous and heavily policed. Until they succeed, migrants live in complete squalor – the majority are homeless or squatting derelict buildings, suffer from hunger and are harassed by police. From last Wednesday, Joe and 55 other Syrian refugees desperate to escape the misery of Calais staged a three-day demon demanding that the UK grant them asylum. Grouped under large blue canvases, the Syrians spent the entire time blockading the port’s footbridge.
Two Syrian refugees on the roof of a building in Calais.
In a statement released on the day, they said, “The French government and police have been very bad with us and do not care about us. They have kicked us out of our house into the street.”
A month ago, the Syrians were evicted from the Beer House squat, an abandoned warehouse close to the port. Since then, the group haven’t been able to stay in the same spot for more than a few nights: “Any time we find a place to stay, the police come and arrest us, destroy our belongings and close the place,” Joe explained.
If that wasn’t enough to explain why Syrian refugees may be reticent in applying for asylum in France, there’s also the immigration services’ eternal waiting times to take into account. It takes two to three months in Calais and four to five in Paris to merely get yourself an appointment. “Claims take six months to a year to be processed – if an appeal is lodged this can extend to two,” explains Philippe Wannesson from La Marmite aux Idées, an association providing assistance to refugees. “In the meantime, they receive no state support and are rarely housed in emergency shelters.”
Tension rose at the occupation last Friday morning as riot police tried to evict the group, with two of the refugees climbing on top of a building and threatening to jump. A majority of those protesting had also gone on hunger strike. By noon, a delegation including a UK Border Agency (UKBA) official was there to negotiate a solution. “They just repeated what the rights for family reunification were and said they could only study their demands on an individual case basis,” reports Philippe. “The Syrians had been very determined up to that point, but that came as a bit of a shock.”
Syrian refugees protesting in Calais.
The occupation ended on Friday evening, with no concession whatsoever from the Brits. “They can help us, but they won’t – I don’t know why,” says Joe. “A lot of British people told us, ‘England is small, it can’t contain you, there are no jobs, there is nothing.’ But they are liars; England can take in more than 60 people. We are just about 60 Syrians here – just 60 – and we have a war in our home, we can’t go back.”
For now, police in Calais have promised they would stop harassing migrants – something that Joe is highly dubious about – and some Syrians have accepted the local prefect’s offer to apply for asylum in France. However, the majority still want to try their luck in England. Joe is currently on his eighth attempt and told me about the method he would have to utilise if he wanted a chance of making it over the Channel: “We have to jump over the fence, which is three metres high, and jump on a lorry,” he explained. “After five minutes, you’re on the boat, but the dogs always discover us. It’s really dangerous. Two of my friends lost their fingers because they were wearing a ring and, when they jumped over the fence, the fence caught their ring and cut their finger off.”
Two million Syrians have fled their country already. Of those, only 40,000 have applied for asylum in Europe – a tiny number compared to Syria’s neighbours, who are collectively hosting 1.8 million refugees. The UN Refugee Agency has said that, so far, 17 countries have promised they would set quotas for Syrian migrants. Sweden is the only country pledging to grant asylum to all Syrians, and even Australia – a particularly unfriendly place for refugees – committed to welcoming 500 of them.
Contrary to populist propaganda, refugees represent a tiny portion of the UK’s population – just 0.27 percent, in fact – and the country receives almost half of the amount of asylum claims than its neighbours in France. However, nothing has yet been said in the UK, despite David Cameron being urged by campaigners to allow more refugees across the border. Instead, the government have been keeping themselves busy by raiding houses in areas with high immigrant populations, getting cops to parade around in “racist vans” and putting up posters encouraging immigrants to go home.
That said, the Syrian migrants remain determined to find asylum in the UK. “We won’t give up,” says Joe. “We will start a new thing tomorrow… and we will keep going on until we succeed.”
Follow Rebecca on Twitter: @beckysuner
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