Refugees from "the Jungle" in Calais. Photo provided by author. All rights reserved.Away from the busy scenes on Calais's ports and motorways, the refugee camp known as “the Jungle” is growing fast and showing signs of becoming a permanent fixture. On 17 September 2015, a 28 man delegation from Scotland spent one day following the lives of some of the camp’s 6,000 residents.
The delegation provides rare, in-depth access that reveals the growing human cost of the crisis and the challenges facing refugees and migrants trying to reach Britain. The Scottish delegation joined a larger UK group to travel to Calais made up of at least 50 vehicles and 500 UK volunteers. More than £12,000 was also gifted to organisations working with refugees in the camp.
Hakem, a Sudanese nurse with an admiration for Florence Nightingale and "the Scottish culture", had spent four days trying to repair up a tent in windswept scrubland on the site of a rubbish dump in Calais, using bits of old clothing, plastic sheeting, a few stones and a wooden pallet.
