On Sunday 21 October, Student Stand Up to Racism took a convoy of 50 students to Care4Calais delivering thousands of pounds in aid and donations. Kirsty from Glasgow Stand Up to Racism reports.
The sky was huge and blue, and the sun was shining in Calais. The camp, colloquially known as The Hospital because of its proximity to one is one of the smaller refugee camps in the area. Here there are around 50 or 60 displaced people, they sleep out of view of the French police in the overgrowth.
When we arrive, there was another agency providing relief, and most of the asylum seekers were already there, playing cricket, sitting in groups on the grass under trees. There are running children, bored looking teenagers, men and women of various ages. Most people here are Kurdish and Afghani, although I meet some Iraqis and Iranians too. Kurdish groups like the YPG are at the forefront of fighting so called Islamic State in the Middle East but face ongoing oppression in the countries they live such as Syria and Turkey. Earlier this year two Kurdish men in Turkey were arrested and threatened with death for speaking to each other in their own language on the streets, in Syria, Turkish forces attacked a Kurdish area killing 24 civilians.
In 1838 the United Kingdom for the first time invaded Afghanistan and over the centuries the country has faced consistent and damaging intrusion from the West. In the 50s the United States overthrew the government of the time, and today Western forces have failed the country, leaving it in an economic mess and under increasing control from the Taliban. In January this year more than 100 civilians lost their lives after a Taliban bomb attack.
Refugees are facing a desperate situation in Calais and elsewhere, and the British government is partly responsible. We have met minors who have the legal right to come to Britain to join their families, but the Home Office has not processed their requests.
These people are our brothers and sisters, we say let them in.
“I want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark. Home is the barrel of the gun and no one would leave home unless home chased you to the shore, unless home told you to quicken your legs leave your clothes behind crawl through the desert wade through the oceans” -Warsan Shire, Home.