MIGRANTS IN ‘THE JUNGLE’ ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME
U.K. pays for wall as France prepares to dismantle camp
The French government is forcing Ali Lalmamad’s hand. A migrant camp nicknamed “The Jungle” that has been his home for the past five months will be dismantled by the end of the year.
On top of that, his hopes of making it to the United Kingdom are fading now that France and the U.K. are building a 13-foothigh wall to block the camp’s 9,000 migrants from reaching a nearby highway or ferry port to hitch a ride across the English Channel. Britain is paying nearly $3 million for the half-mile-long concrete wall, which will start going up this month.
“Every night, I try to go to the U.K., but I’ve had no luck,” the former taxi driver said. “I always come back to The Jungle. It’s not easy — the police, the tear gas. I won’t try anymore. I am very tired.”
Lalmamad, 27, fled Afghanistan because of threats to his safety from the Taliban insurgency. He is resigned to seeking French refugee status, which he said would guarantee his safety but not offer as bright a future as living and working in the U.K. “I will give my papers and fingerprints and ask for asylum in France,” he said.
His decision came after French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced this month plans to dismantle The Jungle and disperse migrants to other sites throughout France. Part of the vast camp was closed this year.
Calais Mayor Natacha Bouchard said residents are pleased to see the tent city go because it has left the town in “complete pain.” But some locals said its closure would simply send the migrants to someone else’s backyard.
“It’s no use dismantling The Jungle if you don’t know what to do with the migrants,” said Therese Boulogne, 83, of Calais. “Is he (the Interior minister) going to take them home?”
Boulogne and her husband moved from the Paris suburbs to retire in this quiet northern French city. Now they lock their doors at night for safety, claiming migrants have stolen everything in their backyard.
“They took all that was in the garden — the tools, the wheelbarrow, the wood, everything they could put their hands on,” she said. “We don’t dare leave anything outside anymore. They should just pack them on a boat and take them to England.”
The migrants have caused disruptions at night when groups of them went to the nearby highway to try boarding trucks heading to England.
“We cut trees and throw them onto the road,” then set them on fire to slow down traffic, explained Tasil Dawlatzai, 16, an Afghan who is one of about 670 unaccompanied minors in the camp.
The French government is building a welcome center for the minors, but it has only 72 beds, said Maya Konforti, a volunteer with Migrants Inn, an association that helps feed and shelter migrants. “It is hard to find a spot for the minors, not to mention that back home, the adults send the children with specific orders to reach England, not France,” she said.
France promised 12,000 beds for asylum seekers and has directed local governments to identify thousands of places to locate them across the country. Those seeking asylum like Lalmamad would be sent to one of the new welcome centers springing up to process their applications.
Some residents oppose those centers. In Forges-les-Bains, south of Paris, arsonists recently set fire to a center preparing to house 90 migrants.
Humanitarian groups said trying to make The Jungle disappear is unrealistic. When the government closed the southern part of the camp in March, most of the 3,500 displaced migrants moved to the northern section, Konforti said. “People literally started carrying their cabins to the northern side,” she said.
Every day, 150 to 200 migrants arrive in Calais, Konforti said. “Where are those people going to go?” she asked. “If they are forced to go, they will run away and then come back to Calais or somewhere around the coast.”
Though some of the migrants will adapt to life elsewhere, Konforti said, about half are determined to remain here and keep trying to reach England’s White Cliffs of Dover.
“They’ve been here for a year, and they’re not giving up,” she said.
Dawlatzai, the 16-year-old, is one of them.
Three months ago, police shot him with a rubber bullet during a standoff on the highway. It grazed his head above his left ear, damaging his skull, which required surgery. The injury has not stopped his desire to reach England.
“They might shoot me, they might kill me, but I will still try to go to the U.K.,” said Dawlatzai, whose older brother is settled there. “If The Jungle is destroyed, I will not go to another city. I will sleep in the streets or in the parks. I will sleep anywhere.”
“Every night, I try to go to the U.K., but I’ve had no luck. I always come back to The Jungle.” Ali Lalmamad