Ben Cowles
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VOLUNTEERS helping destitute migrants in Calais are asking for donations after the French authorities announced plans for another major crackdown a week on Monday.
Care4Calais, a network of mainly British-based volunteers that distributes aid to the hundreds of migrants trapped in Calais and elsewhere in northern France, issued an urgent message on its social media feeds this week.
The message reads: “Authorities in Calais have announced a major clearance for next Monday (11/2/19).
“Over 400 people will once again have their meagre possessions destroyed and be dispersed to streets and fields. This solves nothing and is brutal in the extreme.”
The organisation is calling for supporters to donate backpacks, coats, trousers, shoes, sleeping bags and tents.
French, British and European Union authorities have continued to either ignore or exacerbate the Calais migrants’ plight, which has only worsened since the unofficial refugee camp, known by its former residents as “the Jungle,” was torn down by French police in October 2016.
The European Court of Human Rights ordered France to pay an Afghan teenager €15,000 (£13,000) on Thursday for failing to protect him.
The youth, who in 2016 made the dangerous journey across the English Channel and now lives in the country which twice invaded his homeland, lived alone in a makeshift camp in Calais when he was 12 years old.
The court said it was unconvinced that the French government had done all it could to take care of and protect the child.
France’s Interior Ministry puts the official number of child migrants in the country at 17,000, three times the numbers recorded in 2015.
