UK rejects calls to help Calais Jungle camp
The U.K Government has rejected called from the United Nations Human Rights Agency UNHCR to take in some of the 2,000 refugees from the squalid Calais refugee camp referred to as The Jungle.
Antonio Guterres, head of the UNHCR, had called on Britain to grant admission to some of the mainly Iraqi and Afghani asylum seekers ahead of a move by French police to close down the camp. The Refugee Council had also suggested that the U.K could be part of the solution if they allowed a small proportion to leave Calais.
The move by French authorities has come on the back of widespread condemnation of the camp, whose sanitary conditions and hapless atmosphere have had given it the jungle title. The camp is located at the entrance to the Chanel Tunnel on the French side and has been home to some for several months.
Refugees inside The Jungle have complained about the lack of medical facilities and lack of hygiene. Doctors inside the camp are apparently issuing only paracetamol, while skin diseases and bacterial infections are rampant. Refugees are living in dirty make-shift homes that are no more than tents, with limited clean water and bathing facilities. Those inside the camp have also claimed that only two NGO’s are in attendance and the UNHCR has scarcely been seen. All of the refugees wish to immigrate to the U.K and the hope of a new start in Britain is leading to increasingly desperate measures. Reports of Taliban activity inside the camp have only escalated the fear and horror for the fleeing migrants.
Lorry crossings remain the most popular and most obvious way across, but French authorities remove dozens of would be Britons daily and return them to The Jungle.
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