Welcome to the Jungle
On the outskirts of Calais, there’s a dead-end road with 24 portable toilets and a large vat of water, representing the entire sum of state-provided provision for hundreds of people sleeping rough in the area.
For decades, men, women and children seeking a better life in the UK have passed through this part of France. Until 2016, migrants gathered in what became known as the Calais Jungle. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions brought about its demolition in 2016. But the problem wasn’t solved, just dispersed. Spread around town are hidden camps in wasteland. Migrants from the same countries tend to congregate together. This area around the Portaloos is the Afghan Jungle.
Early in the morning, half-a-dozen volunteers from Care4Calais meet nearby. The UK-based charity was founded in 2016 and today they are preparing to hand out food parcels. Each black bag contains rice, tinned tomatoes and pulses, onions, garlic, spices, salt, sugar, canned fish and vegetable oil.
Care4Calais coordinator Lucy Halliday, 26, leads me into the undergrowth around a maze of flooded ditches, temporarily home to who knows how many, to spread the word that food is available.
“The camps are spread across the city, basically because the police have created a hostile environment,” Lucy says. “Until recently there was a food ban – meaning no organisation was allowed to distribute even a cup of water within the town boundaries.”
We come across a recently vacated camp sheltered by a clump of trees, a blue tarpaulin groundsheet still in place and clothes left hanging on tree branches used as washing lines.
“Some people are only here a couple of days. Some people have been here for a couple of years,” Lucy says. “On average, if they’re trying to cross by lorry, they’re going to
