NOTES FROM CALAIS

Calais and Dunkirk refugee camps, February 2016

In February 2016, I visited the refugee camps in Calais and Dunkirk. At that point in the crisis on the European mainland, the Calais camp had grown to about 7.000 people and the French government was looking to clear the camp. Aid workers feared that many of the people stuck there, would either increase their efforts to make it across the Channel, or would all come to the much smaller encampment at Dunkirk.

Read the piece on the website of National Geographic Magazine (Dutch).

#NotesfromCalais 2: This Kurdish family - that's mum and dad and three kids - go out almost every night, sneak out of the camp and try their luck at finding a truck to get them across to the UK. They keep a bag packed in the corner of the tent. "We are excited to wake up at night because this might be the night we succeed and reach our goal. But we come back to the camp sad", to hear the father, Ibrahim tell it. He used to be a shopkeeper in Kirkuk; the family sold all their belongings to make the journey. Mum's holding 4-year-old Load. "He cries from the cold when we leave the tent at night." John who runs the #CareforCalais charity tells us afterward: "The nightly attempts are what keeps people going. It's a form of hope to them." #refugee #Dunkirk #onassignment #refugeecrisis #everydayrefugees

Een bericht gedeeld door Lisa Dupuy (@lisadupuyreports) op