The asylum seekers refer to their home as the jungle; scatterings of cheap, ad hoc tents erected between a thin forest of trees along a flat roadside. It is easy to blink, hold your eyes shut a tad longer than usual, and miss it.
This summer I volunteered with the charity Roots at the informal Grande Synthe refugee camp in Dunkirk. When people ask me what it was like, the word ‘amazing’ immediately rises to my lips. Yet, this doesn’t feel appropriate considering the conditions and treatment that these people endure; people who have already faced enough suffering to force them flee their homes. Therefore, the question is normally followed by a hesitant pause before I get out the word ‘eye-opening.’
I am lucky enough, by pure chance, to feel welcomed by life, to have a document which a kid I met in Dunkirk told me he would sacrifice any amount of wealth for. I’ve been able to study in three countries and have 19 years of being able “to go anywhere” as one kid said to me, in disbelief. So, with the privilege I had done nothing to earn, I was able to work at a strip of sand and concrete looking out across the Channel to England, where the landscape is as stripped and dusty as the dignity afforded to those living there.
I met so many wonderful people who were kind, polite and smiling despite living in utterly dehumanising conditions. They were so hopeful for the next step of making it to England and it gutted me to know that the chances of reaching Britain were so low, and if they got there, they would face unbelievable levels of racism, legally denied work and often forced to live off £1.20 per day
The first women I spoke to at the camp was a young Ethiopian mother with two angelic toddlers. Hey had been at Grande Synthe for eight days and had tried to cross three times. She told me she probably wouldn’t see me again and I haven’t since. A mum and daughter enjoyed a moment of fun with sweet soaps, lotions, hair products and music whilst taking their hot showers. The next morning I was told that they had tried to cross but the mother was taken by the police before she reached the boats. Her young daughter is alone, potentially in the UK, but with no way to contact her mother.
In order to seek asylum in the UK you must be living there, yet, it is illegal to enter the country unauthorised or without an asylum. This begs the question – how can these boats, which tear lives and families apart, be the only option?
Makeshift shops have sprung up on one side of the camp, but structures remain primitive due to the biweekly police evictions. They arrive unannounced and armed, to destroy the refugees’ tents, sleeping bags and belongings. When in camp, a 6am police eviction left a family of eight sleeping in one tent and four men were taken two hours away, to stay in a cell for 24 hours. I talked to one of the men and he told me this was the second time he had been targeted. He was not questioned but instead left to sit in silence until he was given a French document – which he could not decipher – and permitted to make his own way back to camp. These evictions never achieve anything, other than greater suffering. Like clockwork, within minutes of the police leaving camp, shopkeepers were erecting canopies and refugees were queuing in lines to order tents to house their loved one.
The lucky ones got a thin plastic defence from further violence within the camp before nightfall.
The violence inside the camps was just as terrifying as the police raids. One man told me that he and his family have to sleep on the beach at night to avoid the knife fights which broke out often. One of my colleagues told me a story about a five-year old boy who had opened up to her one day. He had been acting out and following her around all day until eventually he found himself complaining to her about men “fighting every night.” He ranted about violence just as a child in a normal situation would resent being told to eat his vegetables every dinnertime. He recounted one time that a fire had come very close to his friend, which prompted my friend to say, “that must have been really scary.” He replied, “Not really, it happens all the time.”
Roots offers daily hygiene support. Cleaning sinks, building and running showers, providing soap, toothbrushes, razors, sanitary products and more. They also help distribute ‘new arrivals’ information, food and set up gazebos consisting of charging points, a TV for the kids and games. Additionally, hot showers have become an eagerly awaited service every weekend. If you want to help, I recommend donating or volunteering for Roots – a new shower costs just £200 to build!
Click here to read more about what they do.
Photo by Salah Darwish on Unsplash
