page_title: Calais Jungle
section_title: Context
hierarchical_section_title: Calais Jungle / Context
caption_attribution_description: English: Badeldin Shogar a Sudanese migrant at the "jungle" refugee/migrant camp in Calais, France, Oct. 2015
context_page_description: The Calais Jungle was a refugee and migrant encampment in the vicinity of Calais, France that existed from January 2015 to October 2016. There had been other camps known as jungles in previous years, but this particular shanty town drew global media attention during the peak of the European migrant crisis in 2015, when its population grew rapidly. Migrants stayed at the camp while they attempted to enter the United Kingdom, or while they awaited their French asylum claims to be processed.
  The camp was located on a former landfill site to the east of Calais. By July 2015, it had 3,000 inhabitants and continued to grow. Although estimates of the number of migrants differed, a Help Refugees census gave a figure of 8,143 people just before the camp's demolition in October 2016. As well as residences, the Jungle contained shops, restaurants, hairdressers, schools, places of worship and a boxing club.
  The Government of France initially tolerated the camp, later opting to rehouse 1,500 migrants in shipping containers to be used as shelters on the north-eastern side of the site. In February 2016, they evicted the southern sector of the Jungle and there were several arrests.
context_section_description: Migrants based in Calais were attempting to enter the United Kingdom via the Port of Calais or the Channel Tunnel by stowing away on lorries, ferries, cars, or trains. Some migrants were attempting to return to the United Kingdom having once lived there, whilst others were attempting to enter the British labour market to work illegally rather than claim asylum in France. Some migrants lived in the camp while seeking asylum in France, a choice they made because the French system did not provide for them while their claim was being processed, leaving them homeless for the duration. One migrant from Egypt, a politics graduate, told The Guardian that he had "paid $3,000 (£2,000) to leave Egypt, risked my life on a boat to Italy spending days at sea" and that in one month he had tried 20 times to reach England; another, an Eritrean woman with a one-year-old child, had paid €2,500 (£1,825) – and her husband the same – to sail to Italy, but her husband had drowned during the journey. Migrants risk their lives when they try to climb aboard or travel on lorries, occasionally falling off and breaking bones; some fatalities en route are also recorded. In September 2016, workers began building a barrier, dubbed "The Great Wall Of Calais", to block refugees from accessing a highway where they could stow away on vehicles bound for Britain.
  Migrants have gathered around Calais since at least the 1990s. A refugee centre opened in 1999 and had been administered by the French Red Cross at Sangatte, but rapidly became overcrowded. After the Sangatte facility was closed in November 2002 by Nicolas Sarkozy (then the French Minister of the Interior) under pressure from the UK government, a "jungle" camp was established in the woods around the Port of Calais, along with various other camps that sprung up around the city before being torn down by the authorities. The large camp lasted until April 2009, when the French authorities launched a raid, arresting 190 people and using bulldozers to destroy tents. By July 2009, the camp had been re-established, and the BBC estimated it held around 800 inhabitants. French authorities closed down the camp in a September 2009 dawn raid and detained 276 people. Conditions in these camps were poor, typically without proper sanitary or washing facilities and accommodation consisting of tents and improvised shelters. Food was supplied by charity kitchens. The French authorities faced a dilemma of addressing humanitarian needs without attracting additional migrants. The notion of humanitarian aid provision being a pull factor to the area has been contested by academics.
  Smaller camps continued to be set up and evicted over the following years, and local volunteers provided aid to migrants. After a visit to the city by French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve in September 2014, Cazeneuve and the mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart agreed on opening a day centre in Calais for migrants and a night shelter specifically for women and children. It was this decision that led to the opening of the Jules Ferry Centre in January of the following year, around which the camp expanded. In December 2014, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said the conditions in Calais were "totally unacceptable". In partnership with local associations, the UNHCR also reported that 15 people, including young women and teenagers, had died at the border during 2014.
  In January 2015, the government set up an official day centre, initially consisting of three military tents in the car park of a former children's holiday camp, the Jules Ferry Centre. Located on the eastern outskirts of the city, this was the first permanent site for migrants in the area since the camp at Sangatte. It was run by La Vie Active and was set up as a place from which food could be distributed, with overnight accommodation for up to 500 women and children added a few months later. Migrants were pushed towards this site through the dismantling of other encampments around the city and the area around the Jules Ferry Centre became a "tolerated zone" where migr
caption: Badeldin Shogar, a Sudanese migrant, at the Jungle in October 2015
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