Around six o’clock on the morning of Monday 2 August (check) the CRS riot police raided the Pashtun Jungle — the makeshift squatter camp inhabited by Afghan refugees. There they grabbed, beat, and arrested a nine year old Afghan boy. Along with a number of other Afghan adults and teenagers, the boy was taken to the police holding station near the channel tunnel entrance in Coquelles, held and interrogated for a number of hours, before being released to walk the more than 6 miles back to his camp.

On the morning of Wednesday 6 August six vehicles of CRS, border police (“Police Aux Frontieres”) and undercover officers raided the camp of the Hazara refugees (members of a minority in the Afghan nation) near the disused Calais hoverport. This time they arrested a twelve year old boy.

The regular arrests and assaults on children are only one particular aspect of the daily brutality and harassment perpetrated on migrants in Calais by the French police, in particular the notorious CRS: specialist units trained for riot policing and crowd control. CRS units from all over France are rotated through Calais on three week tours, living in barracks: more an occupying army than “community policing”. Since CRS Compagnie 7 arrived in town on 26 July, Calais Migrant Solidarity activists have witnessed or been reliably informed of their involvement in 77 arrests of migrants. And this is certainly an understatement of their activity.

Other incidents we have witnessed during Compagnie 7’s tour include: officers pouring oil and then urinating on the bedding and sleeping spaces of migrants and CMS activists; stealing and destroying bedding, food, cooking utensils and personal possessions; constant harassment through stop-and-search outside the legal guidelines; breaking locks and climbing over fences of properties to sneak up on migrants; repeatedly assaulting, humiliating and insulting migrants and activists; smashing an activist’s camera.

But as well as the reality and fear of police violence, migrants in Calais at the moment also have to deal with hunger. Normally in Calais two charitable associations (Belle Etoile and Salam) distribute lunch and an evening meal to the refugees. But the associations are now taking Summer holidays: Salam for six weeks from 1 July, then Belle Etoile for four weeks. A dietologist contacted by CMS estimated the energy contained in the one meal a day migrants have been receiving for the last month at just 850 calories, against a recommended 2450 for an adult male.

Currently the charities distribute one evening meal at 5:30, and a breakfast of a roll and a cup of tea at 9:30 am. But in recent days the CRS have started targeting the morning food distribution, arresting migrants waiting for breakfast. Hungry as they are, few people will leave their hiding places and risk arrest for a bread roll. Daily diet of a “sans-papiers” in Calais: a vicious cocktail of hunger, fear, violence and humiliation.

For what it’s worth, CMS has been on the ground in strong numbers over the summer so far. By giving warning, filming and recording, and actively intervening where we can, we have prevented the number of arrests and beatings from rising even higher. We have also been able to help step in to fill some of the gap left by the charities’ summer holiday, cooking and sharing our food with as many people as we can in their squats, jungles, and hideouts. The repression continues; so does our work of practical solidarity; of organising together, Europeans with “papers” alongside migrants, for mutual aid and resistance; and of documenting and challenging the reality of life on the borderline.

for quotes, interviews, or further information contact:
0033 699 746 155
 calaisolidarity@gmail.com

How about that:

Following the No Borders Camp in June, French, British, Belgian, Dutch, German and Italian activists set up a permanent presence there. Calais Migrant Solidarity have been doing solidarity work with some of the hundreds of migrants in Calais on a daily basis since early last summer. We are building an exciting movement, but we need more people to be involved,especially French activists, if it is to be sustainable.