“Every year more people drown while crossing the Channel. In 2024, as many as in the previous six years combined.”
We are in Calais. A city with 76,000 inhabitants and 1,200 police officers. A city where every 48 hours, an insane police force destroys the places where people sleep.
That’s bullying. Malicious harassment. Dehumanizing. Get lost, go away.
A city where everyone without papers is homeless. A city where people lose hope.
In the late afternoon, we’re standing on a large field. There’s a game of football going on. Two boys sit by the water tank — just refilled by the organization we’re here with — washing their shoes. Two other boys are watching the game. Aron kicks a ball around with Gabriel. He’s so young it hurts. On the field stands a huge trailer, inside are tents where 400 people sleep.
Laundry flutters on the barbed wire. A bitter image of hope and despair in one.
Everything you see here is a layered reality. Seeing things, knowing what you’re not seeing, and sensing — when you place yourself in the shoes of that boy whose eyes light up when he plays football with a ball that’s far too soft — feelings you don’t want to feel, too much heard, seen, experienced. So young, younger than my own boys.
It’s strange — walking around in this madness during the day, that’s doable. But then, in the evening, back in the hotel room, the awareness sinks in of what I’ve actually seen. And I think about 95 amoral MPs and 1,200 police officers who destroy things pointlessly, and these boys — who are just human, like you and me — but here are condemned to live among the trash, to be welcome nowhere.
Imagine what that must feel like.
The world is broken. I can’t put it any other way.
If everywhere, all we can come up with is beating people away, stabbing boats (yes, that happens here too — in shallow water, it’s even allowed), destroying their belongings every 48 hours with brute force — it’s inhumane. And it’s only getting worse.
Normally, I would now begin a tribute to the organizations here. And they absolutely deserve it, because what courage and grit it takes to keep providing people here with water, food, electricity, clothes — because otherwise they simply wouldn’t have it.
But today, disgusting Dutch legislation runs parallel to a disgusting French reality. And that is unspeakably heartbreaking.
It is unacceptable.
Period.
Lianne Engelkes Manou Zonderland 🌎🌍🌏 Aron Bosman Dirk Kome Bart Driessen Haella Stichting Fred Foundation
