Frontline in Calais: why put so many children in danger?

Jonny Willis reports from Calais where he saw the ‘Jungle’ camp demolished and a systematic failure to protect vulnerable children.

This week has been tough. Without a doubt the hardest in my time in the Calais Jungle.

But I guess in reality I have been preparing myself for this day since I first stepped foot here.

I set up the Refugee Youth Service always knowing it was a means to an end.

Hoping that there would be some solution found that would help people in this camp, that would mean we wouldn’t have to be here.

But what I have seen over the past week has been a systematic failure to protect the most vulnerable here – the children who are on their own.

Systematic failure

We knew when they told us it would take three days that this was far-fetched.

But we were given so many assurances that children would be prioritized, and we had to believe this and try to help the process work.

But after day one, when hundreds of children were still outside of the designated container camp for children, we knew that panic would start to set in as the diggers began to turn up.

By Tuesday the atmosphere had radically changed. It was clear children were confused, the registration process to get into the container camp for children was chaotic. No one had enough information.

Tuesday: Child robbed, his tent set ablaze

15 year old Mohammad from Eritrea had queued all day before being turned away at 1pm when registration closed 7 hours early.

Whilst he had been waiting in line someone went to his tent and stole everything he owned. He was left with only with the clothes he was wearing.

As temperatures began to drop I knew he would have no warm clothes and no bedding to get through the night.

But then to add to his troubles, later his tent, his home, was set ablaze. He literally was left with nothing.

Mohammad joked about what had happened which is disturbing for many reasons, not only because it showed how normal these incidences had become for him.

But mainly it was painful because it showed the trust that he placed in our volunteer organisation to  find him somewhere to sleep; a job that lied outside of our capabilities. I felt helpless.

Wednesday: Crying and all alone

Wednesday came and fires raged through the camp destroying around 70% of the structures. We found 13 year old Eli hiding behind the one of the vans that was distributing food on the edge of the camp, amongst the chaos.

Eli had his head in his hands; he was shaking and crying.He was totally alone and also had nowhere to sleep that night.

We kept Eli with us, along with several of the other younger children as we attempted to make contact with the relevant authorities to source accommodation.

It got dark and we still had not found beds for any of them. By 10pm we had to give up and call in blankets and roll-matts so that we could help these children make beds on the side of the road. Once again, that helpless feeling washed over me knowing there was no more I could do.

Thursday: Nowhere to go

Then there was Thursday. After the French had declared the camp was cleared. We were promised buses to take the remaining young, who had spent that night sleeping rough, to safe accommodation in France.

We were asked to bring the children, take them away from the container camp and the Jungle to the bridge and encourage them to get on buses, so we did.

But no buses came. Instead we were herded down the street by police and made to wait for hours in the cold. So in the end children and remaining adults went back to the camp to stay in a school that was still standing on south side of the camp. This time I felt tricked.

Today: Anger at children put at risk

Now, on Friday, I am left feeling confused. Why force a 5 day job into 3 days? Why not make sure children were out before bringing in the digger? Why put so many children in danger?

I imagine by tomorrow, I’ll just feel angry. Angry that lessons weren’t learnt from the last demolition. Angry that children have most likely disappeared in the chaos.

Angry that once again, a process has been put in place that has put children in extreme danger.

Jonny Willis is operations manager for Refugee Youth Service,