The presence of migrants in Calais is not a recent issue. The old camp, Sangatte, opened in 1999, and refugees from Kosovo and the Middle East flocked to it. Although it was closed in 2002, recent crises in Syria, Afghanistan, and Eritrea have seen an increasing number of migrants fleeing their countries. It is estimated that there are anywhere between two to three thousand people living in the Calais camps, although the real figure could be much higher.At the entrance to the camp, a female journalist in a sharp suit with coiffed blond hair talks in front of two cameras. She looks out of place here--healthy, well-dressed. She packs up almost as soon as she's done her spiel and walks back to the van. Behind her two girls giggle over an old Nokia cell phone. Everybody has cell phones here; it's how they stay in touch with families who are both ahead and behind them.A girl of about 17, with a white towel wrapped around her hair, approaches me. Tinny music is playing out of her phone. She waves at me. "My first shower!" she calls, and we both laugh and swing our hips to the reggae music as we walk past each other. She claps to the music and disappears down the side of a tent.A shower is a generous description of the standpipe that leaks water from one end and drips out of the other. There are ten porta-potties at the entrance to the camp, but other than hot showers in the Jules Ferry refugee center, that's where hygiene opportunities end.When I was a child I thought Europe would be a paradise. I thought of safety, health, and democracy. In Sudan there was death and horrible things.
Children walk in the yard of the women's shelter of the Jules Ferry center, adjacent to the Jungle.
Ahed and her son Khiled walked and hitchhiked from Damascus, Syria, for two months to reach Calais.
19-year-old Shewit Marki is from Eritea. She broke her leg when police pushed her after she tried to get on the Eurotunnel train.
We both laugh, but she is exhausted. "I've been here for six days. I have tried to get to England five times. Maybe tonight I'll take the night off and get some sleep."Her name is Sabina, and she explains how the night is cold here. "I had three blankets, but it wasn't enough. From 10 PM until 4 AM I've been at the Tunnel trying to get on the trains. I won't try the trucks because there's no point. The French police are too good."What happens if they catch you? Sabina shakes her head. "They are only doing their job. We are the ones doing something illegal, I know that, but I also know that life will be better in England." She pauses for a minute, suddenly unsure. "Will life be better in England?"Will life be better in England?
Migrant men perch atop the sand dune that makes up the eastern border of the Jungle.
Migrants pause to talk near an overpass next to the Jungle, where they staged an impromptu demonstration demanding "humanity, freedom, and dignity."
I'm 19 years old, and I'm living among men who are twice my age. They aren't married, they're bored, they're angry.
The main stretch across The Jungle, with chemical plants in the distance
Women and children share breakfast inside the family shelter at La Vie Active.
A Syrian woman in the women's shelter. She is seven months pregnant and says she is desperately trying to get to the UK so she can receive asylum.
Women from Eritrea and Ethiopia prepare traditional ingera in the common kitchen area of the shelter.
Migrants near the overpass of the N216, from where police can easily survey activities below in the Jungle.
Salwa becomes faint after leading the protest near the N216 overpass, the route many cars and trucks travel to reach the UK by ferry.
