the volunteers here do every day, so finding that these are endorsed as essential first steps to improving people’s wellbeing is reassuring.
In the afternoon, a stream of celebrities including Jude Law, Tom Stoppard, Toby Jones and Juliet Stephenson, among others, arrives at the Dome to join the refugees in a performance of live music and letter reading. The volunteer lawyers are working flat out, as they do every day, in the legal centre next door. I bring a young Sudanese man for advice. As I expected, because he has no relatives in the UK, they advise him to claim asylum here. There is a queue of people waiting, and the lawyer tells me they are jealous because they are missing Jude Law, so I run over to ask Jamie Byng from Canongate if he will please bring the celebrities to the lawyers when they are done performing. He does, and the lawyers are as delighted as small children at Christmas, even though, as Jude Law points out, their work is more vital than his.
In the evening, there are about one hundred people gathered in the Jungle Books meeting room waiting for evening training—almost all refugees. They speak three languages. It’s not particularly comfortable or warm, and, as usual, there is the low murmur of conversation. I stand on the small platform around the stove. We get people into language groups so that all translators can work simultaneously, and I see to my amazement that all these young men are listening intently. They are eager to know how to cope, help, and take care of themselves and others. They answer my questions and get the idea. Towards the end, one of them asks:
– If there is an eviction, will you be here to look after us?
– Alas, no—I explain—I have to go back to the UK and then to Greece.
– So what will we do?
–You will support and take care of each other and there are many here to help.
The Jungle, Monday 22 February
I wake up with a profound feeling of depression. I probably should not listen to the World Service in the morning. Further disintegrations in Syria. Fighting between US backed opposition groups. Migrants breaching the fence in Hungary, so they are extending it around Romania. Trump triumphs in the US on a rhetoric of excluding Muslims and building walls. I have a sense of descending into modern medievalism. Unless we radically rethink the way we live, we will become a world of walled kingdoms and endless hitech war, surrounded by the shanty towns and encampments of the dispossessed.
I am trying to tie up loose ends before I leave. Suddenly, everyone calls. Ben T. wants me at the Youth Centre to see two boys who have ‘freaked out,’ although they have calmed them down by the time I get there. Then, Laura asks me to come to the nursery to advise on a hyperactive infant. Again, I get there to find she is doing all the right things, and the child is cheerful and doing well.
I go around saying goodbye to friends. I have finally discovered why Adam’s shelter has been locked every time I visited in the last ten days. A volunteer friend tells me he has accepted adoption by a French family. It had been offered before, but he turned it down when a lawyer told him there was a chance he might be able to join his uncle in the UK. But recently, he heard that the uncle had rejected him, so he had asked the family if they would consider him again, and they had said yes. I am so happy to hear this. At Alpha’s beautifully painted house, some French people are measuring it up, preparing to move it to a museum—better to be a piece of artwork than a destroyed refugee home. Alpha shows me the bag of tear gas canisters he has just picked up and is going to make into something beautiful.
UNHCR is also here, along with a French Government official. The two women have come to assure young people that they will receive all necessary protection. In the ACTED tent they meet with some thirty boys whom Jess has dragged, somewhat reluctantly, from the Youth Centre.
– If you apply for asylum in France, we can promise you will be given food and accommodation, until the process is finished. We have buses going to Bordeaux and Perpignan—says the woman from UNHCR.
– We know people who have applied for asylum, and they don’t get food and medicine—says a Sudanese boy.
– Perhaps there were mistakes. I don’t know, I am not responsible.
– I work for the French government, and I can assure you, if you apply for asylum here, you will have all protections. If you know of specific cases, please tell me about them.
There is a discontented murmuring, and the UNHCR woman suddenly loses her temper.
– Do stop complaining! Just give me the names—be efficient!
There is a stunned silence, then a girl asks:
– Are there spaces for three hundred children around France?
– I cannot say, as protection is the responsibility of the departments.
From the look on her face, the UNHCR lady is clearly regretting attending the meeting. The French government official steps in:
– We have centres for adults, but if we have to find spaces for children, we will. If you want to be protected, we will protect you.
Silence, no one looks reassured.
– I have been here five months with my family. It’s the English who have helped. I have seen no one from the French government—says another boy.
– We will be here every day. The French Government woman smiles.
– The decision to evict has been put on hold—the lawyer tells us at the packed evening meeting. The judge agreed with the Help Refugees’ estimate of numbers and was concerned about the estimated three hundred unaccompanied children in the camp. Apparently, she is visiting tomorrow to assess the situation for herself.
The Jungle, Tuesday 23 February
It’s my last day in the camp. I follow the judge in. As requested in last night’s meeting, everyone is up early to greet her and make a visible display of the numbers living in the southern half. Families with immaculately dressed children stand outside the entrance to the secular school. One of the kitchens is serving fried eggs and onions to a long queue by the information centre. But the judge’s diminutive figure is scarcely visible behind the gaggle of journalists and police around her. The speed with which she moves through, making only perfunctory stops in St. Michaels and the Women and Children’s Centre, suggest the visit has more to do with public relations than genuine enquiry. The judge goes back to Lille to continue the court case. I leave for the port.
Cornwall, Thursday 25 February
The judge has ruled that the southern part of the camp can be cleared, but that the social spaces must remain. The prefecture promises the process will be ‘gradual.’ What does that mean?
Cornwall, Monday 29 February
The police started clearing this morning. Some refused to move so then it was tear gas and stun guns. Apparently, some set fire to their tents, and there was rock throwing. I scroll through photos and videos on social media, feeling miserable and useless. Just before I left, one of my Afghan friends showed me a note he had written out very carefully:
My only wish is to be in a safe place. I want to live in a place where I can find peace and study. I am very tired of this situation and it makes me cry. When I get on a truck, I feel happy, but when we get taken off, we become sad and give up. It is better just to die. He is sixteen years old.
Ahmed’s Story
Ahmed is Kurdish and comes from Kurdistan in Northern Iraq. He was sixteen years old when he told me this story in August 2016, when he was living in a refugee