We have been teaching a university short course on “life stories” in the Calais “Jungle”. We have not found the “economic migrants” of whom French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve speaks. Students have had traumatic experiences far exceeding those defining a “refugee”. Fluent and educated in English, they want to use those skills. Many have relatives in the UK; some are minors. A number worked for UK or US forces and were consequently attacked.
David Cameron said he “applauds” the French government’s approach to Calais (theguardian.com, 3 March). Yet France’s forceful evictions are further violations of residents’ lives. As the poet Warsan Shire put it: “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” Now bulldozers are chewing up carefully constructed havens of wooden shelters and tents, bringing the sharks home again.
Students were anxious. They talked about violence from rightwing groups, children crying in their tents, and their increasing desperation to follow smugglers and get on trucks. Two young men described fleeing the Taliban. To be living in Europe, their epitome of justice, mired in mud, with no action on their rightful claims as a minor with UK family and an ex-employee of UK armed forces, and now, without shelter, was deeply depressing.
If Greece is warehousing souls, it seems France is pursuing a “demolition of souls” in the Calais camp. Britain is doing something similar administratively, by delaying and ignoring legitimate asylum claims. Mobilisation against the French evictions has been widespread, from refugees, volunteers, professionals and politicians in France and the UK. Now, UK and French governments need to recognise refugees’ legitimate desires for asylum in the country of their choice for linguistic, historical and family reasons, and to live up to their moral responsibilities.
Dr Corinne Squire
School of Social Sciences, University of East London
• Can Europe’s politicians and this government sink any lower in their response to the massive refugee crisis facing the whole of the continent, much of it driven by our interventions in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and the rest (UK deploys troops in refugee crisis, 7 March)?
There is no “business model” driving the people smugglers, as David Cameron says, there are simply millions of people fleeing awful disasters who are prepared to pay anything to get their families out of the dangerous places their countries have become for a variety of reasons, but with a massive contribution from our interventions over decades, most notably over the last decade or so since the stupid Iraq war.
Stopping ships from arriving and then shipping the people back to wherever they have come from is a disgusting policy which every civilised person in the world should deplore, and Nato should be forced to stop this policy immediately. It will cause tens of thousands of refugees to die and, more importantly, will do absolutely nothing to deal with the problem. These desperate people have nowhere to go back to, except places of death and disaster for them and their families.
Just imagine the outcry if we’d had such a policy when people were fleeing Hitler in their millions. The fact that Cameron now supports this nasty policy, shows how useless our politicians are in addressing such a basic issue. This is not “political weakness”, as you suggest, it is cowardice, stupidity and a downright betrayal of humanity.
We need a bigger, better and more humanitarian response to this major global issue, not a Donald Trump blockade followed by what?
David Reed
London
• Reports that the UK will contribute to Nato naval forces for rounding up the refugees from the wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, to force them back to Turkey are horrifying. The news that the Turkish government is being paid to stop refugees from crossing borders into Turkey is awful. The reports that refugees from African wars and persecution are to be totally denied their human rights is downright scary.
The governments of the EU, including the UK, are repeating the vile and deathly political manoeuvres that in the 1930s denied the Jews of Europe their lives and their humanity. Documents for safe transport must be issued to every human being to save lives. So say Médecins Sans Frontières. So say I. The panic of the politicians is the panic of ignorance. The loaves and fishes story shows the way.
Vanessa Redgrave
London
• It would be naive to hope that an agreement with Turkey would reduce substantially the flow of refugees into Europe. In practice, Turkey is holding Europe to ransom over migration. Europe will face the spectre of another massive migration by granting almost 90 million Turks access to Europe without visas, in exchange for Turkey’s help in stemming the tide of refugees. In comparison, unlike Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Jordan’s Hashemite leadership has never threatened to send buses and ships with refugees and asylum seekers towards Europe. Instead it has been unwavering and resolute in leading humanitarian efforts to help refugees and Christian minorities fleeing the ravages of war and religious persecution. Moreover, Jordan is vital for world peace, security and stability. Just last week, its intelligence and security services foiled a terrorist plot to target civilian and army installations in the northern city of Irbid, bordering Syria. It is therefore crucial to help Jordan remain a model of peaceful coexistence, moderation and religious harmonisation in a volatile world.
Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London
• When my mother fled London in the second world war with her four children, two of them under four years old, we were known as evacuees. We were lucky to dodge the raids courtesy of a quick-thinking station master. I read the UK’s latest policy of deploying troops as an opportunistic propaganda ploy. What can the rest of us do? Our family has tried in a very small way to honour and support Greek charities who try to mitigate suffering.
Philip Harris
Cornhill-on-Tweed, Northumberland
• Juliet Stevenson (Stars sponsor Calais children, 4 March) wants to bring unaccompanied children out of the camps of Calais; a Kindertransport for 2016. In 1941 those children needed a welcoming charitable organisation and financial backing. Every independent boarding school in Britain is a charity and has land and buildings where refugee children could be housed. The schools could bid for a share of the £10m government fund targeted at those children and bring some of them to England. Welcoming young refugees must surely be on the “to do” list of every charitable school worth the title? Another all-weather hockey pitch? Or cold children brought out of the weather into a lit classroom?
Bob Finch
Cambridge
• We are told that many of the people crossing from Turkey to Greece are from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Presumably in order to reach Turkey they must pass through Iran. Now that we are friends again with Iran could we not prevail upon them not to let them through?
Stephen Green
Wattisham, Suffolk
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