The Refugee Station

The Jungle in Calais doesn’t officially exist anymore.

It was a slum on the coast of northern France where refugees used to squat whilst they tried to sneak their way into the UK. Some would stay days, some would be there years. But not a day went by where they didn’t try to jump onto a lorry and hide themselves away in the hope of reaching the other shore.

The French authorities demolished what had been a permanent slum in the hope of dispersing the incoming undesirables and stemming the flow from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and the like.

All that did was remove the few sanitation points and safe areas for NGOs to distribute their services. There are just as many people there now, just with nothing to stand in the way of utter destitution.

The police tactics are difficult to watch. Every 48 hours they descend en-masse onto a makeshift site and not only confiscate but destroy any possessions they find. A few arrests for good measure. They take knives and rip the tents to make sure they can't be used again. 

The aid groups can only find so many tents to replace the ones being destroyed by police. People need a place to sleep. These are people, after all.

Being an aid worker is emotionally draining. Being on the frontline and feeling powerless to help people achieve the most basic standard of living is exhausting. Finding the strength to help who you can is exhausting when there are so many you simply cannot help.

I used to go for a drive to unwind. We all have our process.

One night I couldn’t sleep and I got in my car and just drove. I drove out of our little aid-worker village and outof Calais and I kept driving. I stopped at an out-of-town petrol station and parked up in a large adjoining car park and switched off my engine and I just sat. I stared out at the night sky. At the petrol station attendant filling up the Skittles.

This was my process.

What I had not expected was the scene that unfolded right in front of my eyes. I had driven in unnoticed and sat with my headlights off. No one seemed to know I was there.

A lorry pulled in to the petrol station off the main road. The 18-wheeler slowed as it approached the pumps and, as it was about to come to a halt, at least a dozen men ran out from their hiding spot in the bushes around the petrol station and tried to clamber onto the lorry.

The driver must have realised and quickly sped off out of the petrol station before he had even come to a stop. These guys resigned themselves pretty quickly to the futility of this attempt,  and they returned to the bushes, laying low out of sight.

I hadn't seen them when I drove in. They were really well hidden. And for the next hour and half I sat and watched them attempt this same routine every few minutes. Not one successful attempt. And they never stopped trying.

These guys were out here every single night, day in day out. Some make it onto a lorry but get stopped at the port. Some make it through the first check but not the second. They get caught, they're processed and let back out the next day and back to it by night.

Not many make it across the Channel this way, but the few that do give hope to everyone else there that it can be done. So they try. Again and again and again, they try. They need something to hope for.

We all do.