Kent Nationalist Movement visit Migrant Camps in Calais and Dunkirk
Earlier this week, on 2 spearate occassions, first dated 13th October, and second dated 17th October, several of our members made the journey from Folkestone via la shuttle across the channel to visit and witness first hand migrant camp locations situated in Calais and Dunkirk. Whilst in Dunkirk we also visited one of the main locations that is used as a launching point for the boats filled with Asylum-Seekers to make the illegal crossing into our counrty.
The first location we visited in The Zone duVirval near the central hospital of Calais is a lagre camp which contains upward of a thousand people (99% of whom are African men, from mainly Sudan and Eritrea). We arrived early afternoon, just in time to witness large hoardes emerging from the bushy camps opposite the hospital grounds, travelling a short distance across the roads to meet the NGO's who arrive daily to hand out large parcels of food, water and other supplies.
After initially observing from the safety of our vehicle, we then decided to make an approach on foot, believing it to be safe as we could see several police units in the vicinity. However, as soon as we got within a relatively short distance of the gathering, it became apparent that our presence was not welcome. After a short time of receiving some abuse we were quickly approached by several of the men who were angrily gesticulating and making it clear we were not welcome to witness any of the events unfolding. At this point we were attacked by one of the men who tried to kick one of our activists and manged to punch another for simply walking past and looking at what was occuring. After we swiftly made our exit, we then continued to observe from the safety of the car.
Considering the fact that these men are being helped daily by volunteers, it didnt seem to help their overall mood or aggression levels. It is clearly an extremely hostile environment due to the nature of the characters occupying thses camps, it seems to be completely synonomous with the local French reports of violence and crime in the area where the men congregate then later on the reports of rape and violent acts being committed by asylum seekers in the UK.
The second location we visited was Dunkirk in the areas of Loon-Plage and Grand-Synthe. These camps are much larger than the ones situated in Calais and they also have a more diverse range of people including those coming from North Africa and the Middle-East. In just the main camps alone there is believed to be upwards of three thousand people and many more hundreds in smaller camps in the surrounding areas. Here we also witnessed a much larger and more sophisticated camp-base, with what appeared to be be pop-up shops selling food and goods also tents with charging station for mobiles and devices and a much larger group of different NGO's handing out supplies. Earlier in the month in this location, a well known You-Tube auditer and his team was attacked for trying to document events in a similar way. On our first visit we were fortunate enough to be able to walk through and document events relatively unhindered, we even managed to speak to a couple of individuals on the outskirts of the camp. We discovered that some of these people had been living here for up to 6 months whilst trying to arrange funds to secure a passage. We believe that that many of these people are commiting crime in the local area in order to raise the necesary funding.
From here they make their way down to an area of Dunkirk called Gravelines, a beach that stretches roughly 2 miles long. Its from here that the vast majority of recent crossings have taken place.
The last location we visited was the Gravelines stretch of beach in Dunkirk, on both occassions that we visited, there was limited activity due to the weather conditions making it impossible for boat crossings. We explored the area and come across bushy sand-dunes adjacent to the entire coast-line, this is where the migrants hide out whilst waiting to cross. In these sand-dunes there is evidence of the crossings i.e discarded foot pumps, old coats and footwear. Apart from that we already know most of our information based on the efforts of other auditors and bloggers. We did try to have some conversation with French locals reagarding these issues however they were completely uninterested in our concerns and didnt seem at all happy to engage. We did however come across one of the invaders carrying recently purchased life-jackets, he told us he was waiting for the weather conditions to improve. Despite the fact that this costs ue considerable time, effort and money we will continue to document and expose this invasion of our counrty. All of this is completely self funded by ourselves, however we do have a donation link on the website for anybody who wishes to help further our efforts, however this is not a mandatory request.
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