Scabies is rife, bronchitis too. Families sleep in flimsy tents in bitter cold. Children play in mud and rubbish. How are we letting this happen? France and Britain each year patent more than 14, new inventions, support a joint population of more than million people and help 20 million more out of poverty overseas. The talent of our two nations drove the industrial revolution, the best medical advances in history, and the creation of the world wide web.
It is not beyond the wit of our two great countries to solve the problem of Calais. It is only a small corner of the European refugee crisis , but it is a bleak one. Of the 1 million people arriving in Europe last year, just 5, have ended up in the Jungle in Calais, 3, more on a wasteland at Dunkirk β the equivalent of just 0.
In contrast 5, people arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos every day. In Lebanon a quarter of the population is made up of refugees. Yet no one has a proper plan to sort it out. Not the French or British governments, the UN or the big aid agencies. No one is doing assessments to identify refugees who need sanctuary or illegal travellers with safe homes they can return to. No one is delivering asylum. No one is enforcing immigration rules. And, most urgently, of all, no one is making sure that vulnerable people β especially children β get basic humanitarian aid and protection to keep them safe.
In the Jungle I met children β aged just 11 or 12, younger than my own β who are there alone. One boy bears scars across his face from the bomb that struck his home. And they are vulnerable β to cold, violence, exploitation and prostitution, and to death as they take crazy risks throwing themselves on to trains heading for Britain. One lone British volunteer is doing her best to look after them. Were this on UK soil, it would be illegal for local councils to leave children in danger like this.
Dunkirk in some respects is worse than Calais. Here Iraqi Kurdish families, many of them women and children, have been dumped by trafficking gangs on waste ground with no proper shelter or sanitation. Aid workers say it is worse than anything they have seen in Sierra Leone or Darfur. But in the Jungle, from what I saw, there is very little hope left β only despair. I agree that France has to lead action on its soil.
