An Application from The Jungle

This is the personal recollection of the Calais No Border Camp by one member of our group, others will follow soon.

I am surrounded by faces, all beaming at me, eyes glittering with interest, with expectation. The floor is beautifully carpeted and a Turkish man has motioned me towards a space towards the back of the structure opposite the door, carefully dragging a cushion from the wall in a manner imbued with all the gentle goodness and grace that the Muslim character engenders.

The shelter is poorly lit and stuffy inside, but though bare, it is clean. Blue tarpaulin sheets are stretched taught over a robust wooden frame, wooden pallets provide the base for a perfectly flat floor and the roof rise’s each side to an apex.

“The Wind?” I ask, “No problem.” “The rain?” I get the same reply.

Two miles away and two hours previously it was still stiflingly hot when I had turned the corner of the Boulevard des Allies to see, set against the maritime train station in Calais a sight starkly reminiscent

Stop Charter Flight Deportations Protest in Cardiff

Over twenty people gathered in central Cardiff on Wednesday to coincide with the ‘ethnic charter flight‘ that deported Nigerian families at 6pm.  There was also protests by Stop Deportation Network in London and Residents Against Racism in Dublin.

We distributed hundreds of copies of a leaflet explaining ’ethnic charter flights’, our opposition to them and deportations in general with specific reference to Nigeria. The was no police presence and the reaction from people passing by was