The Louise Michel is the humanitarian rescue ship saving lives in the Mediterranean. Financed by the artist Banksy, it has found a safe port in Sicily.
Migration
Dunkirk refugee camp is hell on earth, in the heart of Europe
Nel comune di Grande-Synthe, nel nord della Francia, migliaia di profughi vivono in condizioni disumane. Al gelo, nel fango. Tra loro centinaia di bambini.
“For the men, the women, and the children who dreamed for a better life in Europe, this is it”. What follows is a series of images portraying silent people wandering in the camp, between tents and shacks at the mercy of rain and wind. They walk in the mud, with plastic bags to cover themselves.
“We don’t believe our eyes”
The American TV channel CNN brought its cameras to what is defined as a swamplike place. “At first glance it’s hard to believe this exists between Britain and France, two of Europe’s wealthiest nations. But it does, and it’s not far from the better-known ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais”. The camp is located in the municipality of Grande-Synthe, in the region of Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardie, France, on the outskirts of the port city of Dunkirk.
It’s a refugee camp where thousands of refugees wait for finding a way to reach their destination: the UK. 30,000 people live in an inhabitable place, they only have 24 showers and 44 toilets available, with water and electricity coming and going.
Among the refugees, 250 children
According to the newspaper Le Monde, mostly Kurdish refugees live in the swamp of Grande-Synthe. “This is not a camp, this is an open dump,” said Delphine Visentin, Médecins Sans Frontières, which provides medical help four times a week together with other doctors. They also bring blankets, boots, food, and try to contain the cases of scabies spreading due to the horrible sanitary conditions people endure.
“Seven-year-old Mani is one of at least 250 children who live at this refugee camp. He, his parents and his sisters Mali and Manar have been here nine months,” tells CNN. “Theirs is an existence built purely on hope at this stage, because they are in no physical state to try cross into Britain illegally in the dark of night, and the family does not have the money to pay smugglers the $10,000 price tag. They have already paid $30,000 to bring his family from Iraqi Kurdistan to France”. 30,000 dollars to end up living in hell.
Cover photo: a kid in Dunkirk refugee camp ©Carl Court/Getty Images
Siamo anche su WhatsApp. Segui il canale ufficiale LifeGate per restare aggiornata, aggiornato sulle ultime notizie e sulle nostre attività.
Quest'opera è distribuita con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 4.0 Internazionale.
Venezuelan refugees are vulnerable to the worsening outbreak in South America: while coronavirus doesn’t discriminate, it does affect some people more than others.
In the midst of India’s coronavirus lockdown, two dozen people lost their lives in a desperate bid to return home: migrant labourers forced to leave the cities where they worked once starvation began knocking at their doors.
Behrouz Boochani returned to being a free man during the course of this interview. The Kurdish writer was imprisoned by the Australian government in Papua New Guinea for six years.
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was signed by 164 nations in Marrakech. This is what the non-binding agreement that encourages international cooperation stipulates.
The winners of the World Press Photo 2019 tell the stories of migrants in the Americas. From the iconic image of a girl crying on the border between Mexico and the United States to the thousands of people walking from Honduras towards a better life.
The Semìno project is a journey of discovery through different countries’ food habits, offering migrants employment opportunities and allowing us to enjoy the properties of vegetables from all over the world.
Travelling across the new route used by migrants to cross the Balkans and reach Trieste in Italy, a reportage that documents the social, economic and political changes of the countries along the way.
The countries hosting the most refugees aren’t the wealthy, Western ones. An overview by NGO Action Against Hunger reminds us that refugees and internally displaced people are far from being safe.