Lost without translation: Calais migrants struggle with language barrier

CALAIS, France: For the cocktail of languages heard on the dirt streets of the Calais ‘Jungle’ take a dollop of Dari, add a pinch of Amharic and Arabic, and sprinkle liberally with Punjabi, Pashto, Kurdish, Tigrinya and Farsi.

The one language rarely heard among the 7,000-10,000 migrants living in the sprawling camp outside the French Channel port is French, though many of the migrants, most of whom have their hearts set on reaching Britain, have a smattering of English.

The French, in turn, have a fraught relatship with the language of their old enemy. The situation makes for sometimes farcical exchanges in the Jungle and highlighting the need for more professional interpreters.

Mariam Guerey, a volunteer with a Catholic charity that works with Calais migrants, was recently asked to use her language skills to help deliver a baby – via mobile phone.

“The hospital called me to help a Sudanese migrant,” she said.

“She was in the middle of a difficult birth so they put the telephone on loudspeaker so I could translate the midwife’s instructions.

“’ Push! Breathe in!,’ I kept saying, until I heard the baby cry.”

Medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), founded in France, has been assisting people caught up in conflicts and disasters around the world since the 1970s.

But it has never encountered the world in a single camp, said Franck Esnee, the organisation’s head of mission in Calais.

“We’re used to speaking two languages, maybe three maximum. This is the only crisis where we are asked to help people in four, five, even six languages.”

MSF is one of the only charities operating in the Jungle that has interpreters on its staff.

The six interpreters are themselves all migrants who arrived in France years ago, like 26-year- old Kais Rezai, who made the gruelling journey across the Mediterranean and up through Europe to Calais alone at the age of 13.

Like many of the 900- 950 unaccompanied minors living in the Jungle he had hoped to be reunited with family in Britain but Rezai ended up staying in France, where he was placed with a host family and completed his schooling. — AFP