So far the month of September has seen:
Eviction of the Beer House squat where around one to two-hundreed Africans and Syrians had been living for the last year.
Three immediate evictions of the big squats where those people had been seeking shelter in the nights following the eviction.
Complete destruction of the Sudanese jungle with around twenty arrests.
Police and city workers destroyed all the tents they could find, while taking the blankets and personal things to the to city dump. There they were mixed together with what rotting materials were left inside the Beer House. Everything would have been immediately destroyed if it weren’t for people going to the dump to take them back that day.Tents have been destroyed by the police in the Afghan jungle during their frequent morning raids. Police come every two days, check IDs, arrest people, around 8-11 people most of the time. They also kick in the tents, and one of them was cut down by PAF border police.
Some people who have fingerprints in another European country, mostly Italy, are transferred to the Coquelle immigration prison and some have been deported to Italy after these raids. The situation in Coquelle is getting much more worse, with a lot of racist behaviours from police.
The CRS riot police are controlling people a lot in the city, parks and also stations, but also in the streets near Salam at night, ID control and arrest the people they find in their way.
An illegal eviction of a new squat that would have been able to house everyone during the cold winter months based upon falsified testimonies.
We are now only halfway through the month and police have promised another planned closure/destruction of a large sleeping space for the next two weeks, most likely forcing another one-hundred people on to the streets.
This will be in addition to the spontaneous evictions that occur as people moved-on continue to try and find shelter in the city. As more people have to take to the street, police controls and harassment are increasing as well.
As the temperature drops again and the rains come there have also been a series of attacks by Police on the garage rented by Calais Migrant Solidarity, from where we distribute the blankets, tents, and clothes that we have. Today, eight Police Nationale appeared at the garage as CMS were distributing clothes and violently pushed those out-front away from the garage, smacking people across the face and kicking them from behind. This was before taking out their pepper spray and spraying everything inside, making the clothes and blankets inside impossible to use. This is the latest attack; however, last week the garage had already been peppered sprayed, and in the mean time the locks on the garage door have been forced and broken with people’s things going missing from inside.
People desperately need:
-Blankets
-Sleeping Bags
-Tents (make sure poles are included)
-Waterproof Clothes
-Shoes
-Socks
-money to buy food as they are living off of the one meal a day provided by SALAM
and most importantly people who are able to support them and defend their spaces!
