APRIL 2024 IN CALAIS

AGAIN AND AGAIN
On 01/04, a 26-year-old Iraqi Kurdish was stabbed to death in a camp in Loon-Plage.
On 04/04, a man was hit several times in Furnes on the E40 road in front of a petrol station near Dunkirk.
On 19/04, a person was run over on a main road near the camp in Loon-Plage. The man had to cross the dual carriageway because the passage through the bridge Pont-à-Roseaux had very recently been walled off.

On 23/04, at least 5 people, including a little girl, died trying to reach the United Kingdom by boat off the coast of Wimereux. The next day, the commemoration gathering spontaneously turned into a demonstration. More than 200 people shouted their anger in front of the town hall and the sub-prefecture.

NORMALIZED VIOLENCE
On 04/04, tear gas grenades set fire to a boat and an 18-year-old person was wounded in the hand by an LBD (rubber bullet) shot.
On 04/04, a large-scale eviction from all living areas took place, with buses present. The cops were particularly violent, beating on the tents and shouting orders to wake up and terrorise the inhabitants. The PAF (police aux frontières), CRS (“compagnies républicaines de sécurité“) and national police then organised a real manhunt in the town to force people onto buses to get to the CAES (reception centre). A great deal of personal property was destroyed.
On 23/04, the evening of an attempt to cross turned into a tragedy, around sixty people on the move were violently evicted from a first train and then from a second one at Calais centre and Fontinettes stations by heavily armed national police officers. They were also prevented from taking the bus, which was cancelled at the last minute. At least three person were arrested that evening. As for the people who watch this state violence, they are regularly controlled, hindered and intimidated. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6Ok9NuCuja/
In April, 4 complaints were lodged by people on the move alleging that the police had stolen their phones. The IGPN (inspection générale de la police nationale) interviewed the complainants.
The new sub-prefect (Agathe Curry), a former adviser to Darmanin, who took up her post on 11 March, is continuing her policy of harassing people on the move.

STOP DEPORTATIONS
On 19/04, a Sudanese person was deported to Sudan from the Coquelles detention centre.

OFFENCE OF SOLIDARITY
On 02/04, a volunteer from an association acting in Grande-Synthe was remanded in custody for 15 days. At the hearing on 19/04, he was cleared and released.  It was acknowledged that he was acting on a humanitarian basis and as part of the voluntary activities of the association, without any compensation.

FREE PALESTINE
The weekly gatherings on Saturdays at 6pm continue to denounce the atrocities committed against Palestinians.
On 20/04, a peace march to the beach was organised.
Stop the genocide! Sanctions against Israel!

RWANDA
On the night of 22 to 23 of April, the ‘Safety of Rwanda’ bill was passed by the British Parliament. This bill allows people seeking asylum to be deported to Rwanda. The fact that Rwanda is not a safe country and that this project will be a financial abyss is not stopping the British government.

in french :

AVRIL 2024 A CALAIS

MARCH 2024 IN CALAIS

NO MORE DEATHS

On 03/03, Rola, a 7-year-old Iraqi child, drowned in the river Aa at Watten in the presence of her mother, who was eight months pregnant, her father, who was taken into police custody, and her three brothers, when their boat sank.

On 19/03, the body of Jumaa, a 27-year-old Syrian, was found in the Aa canal in Grand-Fort-Philippe. On 02/03, as he was about to board a small boat, the police sprayed tear gas. In the panic this caused, he drowned. His relatives and various organisations had been calling on the courts to resume the search for his body since the beginning of the month. 

Unsurprisingly, a request has been made to install a line of buoys on the canal to prevent small boats from passing through.

FEMINISTS WITHOUT BORDERS

On the 8th March, to mark International Women’s Day, a rally was held in Place d’Armes to discuss the situation of displaced women and Gazan women.

HATE CRIME

Seven years after the events, the leader of a series of 2016 hate crimes, Christophe Griffart, appeared at the tribunal of Boulogne-sur-Mer on 19/03. At least four outbursts of violence around the informal camps of Grande-Synthe and Calais were recognised by the court. The court sentenced him to 3 years imprisonment with a suspended sentence of 18 months. Griffart will have to pay €1,500 in compensation to one of the victims.

DETENTION CENTER (CRA)

Following the riot and the burning of a mattress in the Coquelles detention centre at the end of February, the police unions denounced a ‘climate of violence’ within the center and called for 40 new police officers to be assigned there.

On 31/03, around forty people took part in a noise demo outside the center in support of those detained inside.

ROUTINE VIOLENCE

On 21 March, the beach at Ambleteuse was the scene of aggressive maneuvers by the police to prevent people from crossing the Channel. The use of tear gas and truncheons against those present as well as the ignition and puncturing of inflatable boats are recurrent.

Videos dating back to 2023 have been recovered as part of an ongoing investigation by the IGPN. They clearly show the highly dangerous manoeuvres carried out by the cops at sea. https://twitter.com/cerveauxnon/status/1772231994778292649

Evictions at living sites are a daily occurrence.

GOING THE EXTRA MILE

Calais’s free bus service for the area’s residents is under reconsideration. Philippe Mignonnet, Calais town council’s deputy security officer, says the aim is to combat the excessive presence of migrants on the bus. The Rassemblement National is delighted.

NICE ONE

On 31/03, the floating buoys installed in August on the river Canche were cut with an angle grinder.

FEBRUARY 2024 IN CALAIS

DEATHS
On 04/02, Rojdar, a 34-year-old Iraqi man, died following a gunshot wound near the Loon plage camp. On 28/02, during a Channel crossing, a body was recovered lifeless off Cap Gris-Nez and two people are still being sought.

COMMEMOR’ACTION
It’s already been ten years since the Tarajal massacre, ten years during which the number of dead and missing has continued to rise. On 6 February, in Calais, nearly 300 people gathered in Richelieu Park to respond to the international call for mobilisations in memory of the dead and missing at the borders. The gathering turned into a wild demonstration. The anger was expressed in front of the town hall (at the same time as the town council meeting) and in the streets of the town centre with slogans, drums and smoke bombs. Migrate to live, not to die!

DETENTION CENTER (CRA)
On 10/02, a noise demo took place to send force to people imprisoned in Coquelles. Despite the speed of the action (5 minutes), the cops carried out an identity check. The following day, 11/02, a mattress caught fire in the basement of the CRA. A number of people were brought before a judge and two days later had to appear in court. On 17/02, around fifty people gathered at a solidarity ball organised to protest against the planned detention centre in Dunkirk.

SQUAT
Exactly two years after the occupation of the Fort-Nieulay tower, which ended with the intervention of a RAID helicopter, the building has been demolished. Four activists were arrested on the sidelines of a demonstration and fined heavily. A great support evening was held on 24/02.

FREE PALESTINE
Mobilisation continues in Calais. In addition to the weekly rally, a “march for peace” took place on 24/02 in the town centre and a screening of a documentary film recalled the terrible situation in Gaza for decades before October 2024.

FREE IBRAHIMA
Ibrahima Bah, a Senegalese teenager, was sentenced by an all-white jury to 9 and a half years in prison for manslaughter and facilitating illegal entry into the UK. He was driving the dinghy that sank on 14 December 2022 in exchange for free passage. Ibrahima risks spending years in prison because of this racist and unfair border regime.

FEVRIER 2024 A CALAIS

JANUARY 2024 IN CALAIS

THE BORDER MURDERED AGAIN

On 14/01, five people drowned near Wimereux.

Abadeh aged 14, his brother Aysar aged 26, Mohamed aged 18, Ayham aged 25 and Ali aged 25 were trying to reach a boat in icy water. These young Syrians died trying to cross the Franco-British border.

The survivors were left wandering the streets of Calais just a few hours after the tragedy.

As Alarm Phone’s latest report explains, the consequences of the agreement to “stop the boats” have led to an increase in the number of fatal accidents in the Channel.

On 27/01, Uday, a 19-year-old Sudanese man, was found dead in a lorry in Transmarck. His body had been pierced by metal bars that had come loose during braking.

CRA

On 1 January, some people went outside the Coquelles Administrative Detention Centre to reaffirm their support for the people being held there, who in turn were able to shout their need for freedom from the courtyard.

One of the areas was undergoing work this month, and occupancy of the three remaining areas exceeded 100% with the addition of beds.

3rd ANTI-MIGRANT BARRIER

On 09/01, the Préfecture de la Somme installed a floating boom on the Authie at the Madelon port in Waben. These buoys, like those installed on the Canche in August, are designed to prevent any boats from passing. Before the buoys were installed, small boats used to set sail for the Channel and then the United Kingdom.

FREE PALESTINE

In Calais, every Saturday at 6pm, people from all walks of life get together to shout their support for Palestine, to give leaflet, to exchange ideas and to publicise the Boycott Israel campaign.

Ceasefire!

DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST THE IMMIGRATION LAW

The trivialisation of racist, xenophobic and discriminatory positions was echoed along the coast.

On 20/01 in Dunkirk, over a hundred people demonstrated in the streets.

On 21/01 in Boulogne, around a hundred people gathered in front of the monument to Franco-British friendship.

On 21/01 in Calais, a gathering of around a hundred people took place on the beach.

JANVIER 2024 A CALAIS

DECEMBER 2023 IN CALAIS

WE DON’T WANT TO COUNT THE DEAD ANY MORE

On 04/12, the body of a man was found on the beach in Dannes. It was the body of Eskeil, an Eritrean man who had been sought by his family since the shipwreck off Boulogne on 22/11.
On 09/12, Bashir, a Sudanese man, died from electrocution on a goods train in Calais.
On 15/12, Mustafa, a young Iraqi man, drowned off Grand-Fort-Philippe in a shipwreck. Two other people are missing.
On 15/12, the same day, Ahmed, a young Sudanese man, was found in cardiac arrest on the beach after a small boat sank off the coast of Sangatte.
On 22/12, a body was discovered at the foot of the cliff at Audinghen near Cap Gris-Nez.
All these people died trying to reach the United Kingdom. In 2023, at least 28 people died on the Franco-British border.

HUNGER STRIKE
A volunteer from an association working in Calais and Dunkirk went on hunger strike on 22/11. His demands are few and far between, yet they are being ignored: water supplies for people on the move from the Civil Security, respect for the work of voluntary organisations and application of the winter truce.

SQUATS
On 08/12, people on the move surviving on the streets and solidarity activists formally occupied a small derelict building to live away from the elements, the cold, daily evictions and police harassment. The police evicted 80 people from the squat in Calais town centre. Anyone who refused to be evicted was tear- gassed. Two people (supporters) were taken into police custody, but no legal action was taken.
On 28/12, the cops raided another squat of around 200 people who had been living in a large abandoned warehouse near Marck for several weeks. They asked everyone to leave the hangar and 5 people were arrested by the PAF. That same evening, people had already moved back in. Housing for all!

FREE PALESTINE
On 09/12, in response to a call from the Calais-based Free Palestine collective, more than a hundred people demonstrated for peace in Palestine. Despite the length of the fighting and the lack of any prospect of peace, the rallies and demonstrations continue. The complicity of the French state, the blockade of Gaza, the bombings and the colonisation must stop.

DARMANIN’S VISIT
On 15 December, Darmanin came to Calais to promote his immigration law. A few dozen people who had come to shout their disagreement with this law were harassed in the vicinity of the police station. One person was violently taken to the station for an identity check.
Meanwhile, this dear Minister of the Interior hailed the militarisation of the border and decorated the “poor” police officers and gendarmes injured during harassment operations against exiles. Out of place when you think of the two people who lost their lives that very morning.
He also announced the creation of a new police station in Calais (€200,000). As a reminder, a budget of 25 million euros will also be provided by the state for the construction of a CRS barracks.
The more the government militarises the border, the higher the death toll! Will a policy of reception and free movement ever be considered?

ANTI-CRA MOBILISATION
On 15/12, a public meeting was held in Dunkirk against the planned construction of an administrative detention centre. Around thirty people attended, with a strong desire to organise against this umpteenth prison project for foreigners. Further events are planned.

French version : https://passeursdhospitalites.wordpress.com/2023/12/31/decembre-2023-a-calais/

JUSTICE for the family of Aleksandra

دادپهروەریۆبزانیضخئهليکساندرا

SORANI Kurdish below

“This is the story of the mother who dreamt of the birth of her child.
But unfortunately black hands who called themselves police, who had no conscience or human rights or understanding towards a pregnant woman, deprived me of my dream.
My story begins on a cold night on 2 September 2020, on the beach we were trying to leave from to go to Britain.“

So begins the letter of R Sharif, mother of Aleksandra H.

Aleksandra was born on 2/9/20, following a premature birth, and subsequently died 5/9/20 of perinatal anoxia.

We stand in solidarity with the family, for which her death was by no means an accident.

Aleksandra’s family, the mother heavily pregnant, was intercepted on a beach by the police as they were about to cross to the UK by boat. R.’s waters broke and, despite calls for help, the police did not get her any medical attention. Instead the family was kepts on the beach and in the cold for hours. Only after another police patrol passed by in the morning was she then taken to the hospital. It proved too late for Aleksandra to survive.

The parents have since filed a legal complaint, that is now in the hands of justice. After the first letter from the mother, and an answer from the prefecture, here’s a statement in support of the family from friends and associations.

French version here ; Sorani Kurdish version below.

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cp-aleksandra-hazhar-version-finale_engDownload

Sorani Kurdish – دادپهروەریۆبزانیضخئهليکساندرا

cp-aleksandra-hazhar-version-finale_soraniDownload

Don’t send Afghans back

Tags

Afghanistan, deportation, migrants, migration policy, respite centers

On the 17-18 of February, a weekend of protests will take place across some major cities in Europe against the deportation of asylum seekers from Europe to Afghanistan.

“The percentage of granted asylums to Afghans in European Union differs strongly between the different members states. Some countries won’t protect almost anyone (Hungary accepts a shocking 7.4% of Afghan refugee status claims), others are doing slightly better. But the EU countries have proven to be unwilling to protect Afghans, as the EU pressured Afghanistan to take back their people, under the threat of stopping all financial aid to the country.

The stories of deported Afghans will most likely never reach our national media, but numerous human rights organizations, such as Amnesty, have reported multiple killings of deported people, when they arrived “home”. Even now these people have proven to be in danger, our governments continue to send back the people searching for protection in the EU. 3260 people were send back in 2015. In 2016, the number almost tripled, as 9460 people were deported.”

Despite the extremely volatile situation, European governments increasingly are denying asylum requests for Afghan refugees and continue to deport people back to the country.

The readmission agreement concluded on the 5th October 2016 between Afghanistan and the European Union (see here and there) aimed to systematize and facilitate deportations to Afghanistan.

France didn’t deport people directly to Afghanistan since 2009 -although they did deportations to 2nd countries, mostly where fingerprints had been taken, that did then end up in deportations to Afghanistan, as you can read here.

They started again in 2017.

 

Here the list of demos planned for the 17-18 of February in different european cities.

 

A death on Thursday evening

Tags

border, Calais, death, exiles, United Kingdom

The violence of the border does not go on vacation.

Fisha, 22yo from Eritrea, died last Thursday 3 August around 11:40pm, hit on the highway by several vehicles after jumping from the van in which he was.
This is the seventh known death at the British border in 2017.
It’s not an account, 7 people it’s not a number, each of them it’s a person who’s dead.

http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/200432/article/2017-08-04/un-migrant-meurt-percute-sur-l-a16

A solidarity gathering was held yesterday at 6:30 pm in Calais, as it takes place after every death caused by the border policies.

This year we also remember the death of:
Omar, a 17-year-old Sudanese miner, who was ran over by the bus he was trying to hang on, 22 July in Brussels;

A Polish driver who died after crashing into a barricade on the highway, June, 20;

Kim Le, an person from Vietnam, who committed suicide in the hospital on Wednesday, May 31;

On Tuesday, May 2, an exile who died in the Gare du Nord train station, in Paris, burned by the electricity on the roof of the Eurostar where he had managed to climb;

An Afghan migrant who died following an attempt to cross on 11 March;

Johnsina, a 20-year-old from Ethiopia, who died on Saturday (January 21st) around 8 am, hit on the highway by several trucks.

Calais : aspects of solidarity offence

With periods more or less under tensions, with some priorities that can vary, repression of solidarity has become a permanent thing in the landscape of Calais.

In 1999, before the opening of the center of Sangatte, with the increase of numbers of migrants and the hardening of British politicies concerning migrations, the French autorities are hesitating on how to act. Unpermanent shelters are opened and then closed, at the same time police is hunting migrants and the prefecture put pressure on associations. Then in July the sub-prefect is threatening associations of criminal proceedings if they continue to distribute food and give some help to migrants who are sleeping rough in the park St-Pierre, in the city center. But this is from the end of 2002, at the closure of the center of Sangatte, that criminal proceedings are used as a tool or repression and intimidation.

Those legal proceedings are responding to different objectives.

They participate to a different way to look at the problematic. In this point of view, the situation would not be related to borders and freedom of movement ; migrants would just come to Calais because there is next to it a shelter center in Sangatte. That’s why the autorities decide to close the center and destroy the shed. In this same logic, solidarity actions are designed like the cause of the presence of migrants. This rhetoric is coming back all the time since the destruction of the slum with ”points of fixation” (this is the term autorities use to designate the actions of associations like showers and food distribution) that we need to erase to get rid of migrants. The prosecution of the actions of volunteers and activists, guilty of this situation that has to stop, is participating to this same logic.

It’s also important to reduce the associative action when it obstructs the action of public powers. For example when they film, make testimonies, document, but also when they open squats, resist deportations, build squats. Between the No Border camp of June 2009 and the beginning of the slum of Calais in April 2015, this is mainly activists of this movement that are targets of proceedings, intimidations and often physical violences, without any concern by the rest of associations. Proceedings use mainly insulting behaviour, rebellion, violence on officers, or degradation when related to the opening of squats. Emergency state is giving new tools to autorities, autorizing bans on protests and meetings on the public highway.

Legal proceedings also participate of a strategy of controling the actions of the associations, in particular during the slum of Calais. They complete other actions justifying more police at the entrances, like tickets for cars, obligation of laissez-passer to access the slum by chemin des Dunes, prohibition of bringing materials to build shelters after the fire on August 25th 2016, if no autorization of the prefecture. In parallel, a new coordination of the actions between associations chosen by the state in the slum is managed by the NGO ACTED, chosen by the state to do it.

It is important to note that the 18 months existence of the slum of Calais have been heavy in repression, with 30 cases identified (soon translated) of legal proceedings or incarceration for further deportation. Except the highly mediatized case of British Rob Lawrie, almost no reaction were generated by main associations, involved in a complex relation with the state made of co-management of the situation, of negociation with restrictions and of conflictuality.

A more complete understanding of the situation collide to a visual defect, linked to a racialized representation of the situation. In the usual representations, the smuggler is a stranger, masculine, generally we give the epithets ”no scruple” and ”very lucrative business”, while in reality, passage as well as smuggling is deeply rooted into the border society. As well in the usual image, the solidarity helper is European, a vision also biased, that give us an uncomplete vision of solidarity actions of migrants and repression.

Therefore a few years ago, in the camp of Norrent-Fontes, close to a parking on the highway near Calais, there was no smugglers and migrants were organizing collectively for crossing. But when a group jumps in a truck, somebody has to stay to close the door, and this person becomes for police the smuggler, the person who facilitate the crossing for others. We then have only a really uncomplete understanding of the situations where solidarity and friendship exists, with or without money, and where this solidarity can be pursuit. We can note that among the 30 people with legal proceedings or incarcerated during the Jungle period, 6 are migrants.

Finally, it should be noted that the intensification of repression in recent months has extended it to other categories, in a kind of scorched earth policy aimed at isolating and depriving exiles of resources. Journalists as witnesses who may be undesirable (see here and there), or some economic actors such as a taxi driver or hotel managers.

The invaders

Tags

Calais, exiles

“This Monday I was quietly smoking a cigarette while drinking a coffee at the kitchen window. A man appears in the doorway. In the large house in the process of moving and with rooms empty, it seems almost natural. He asks if a doctor lives in the house. He explains that he rang the doorbell and that the door was closed (after checking it will prove that the doorbell is working and he has just pushed open the door). It was then that I noticed his coat of arms and reconize his coat a little strange. The man is a mobile gendarme.

“Doctor”: there is one who has actually lived there until the last few years. The gendarme is informed, inaccurately, of course;  it is actually a neighbor who saw a move and who pointed out the place as a potential squat. The gendarme came to visit, without ringing and without a search warrant, sure of his impunity. We’re in Calais.

It is amusing, because among the rumors circulated by the extreme right is that of invaded Calaisians who find even “migrants” in their dining-room chattering content of the fridge. In reality, they are cops that are found at home in the kitchen. So who are the invaders? “

This happened on 12 June 2017 in a house in Calais.