Sunday, November 17, 2002

Who'd Have Thunk It?
The Independent (UK) says Expelled asylum-seekers head back towards Calais:
Many of the asylum-seekers expelled from a Calais church on Thursday, and shipped by police to other parts of France, are already making their way back to the Channel coast, it emerged yesterday.

Although most have agreed verbally to seek asylum in France, abandoning all right to do so in Britain, very few have actually done so.

In a typical incident, 29 refugees, mostly Iraqi Kurds, arrived by train in the small town of Joué-les-Tours, on the Loire near Tours, 350 miles from Calais, on Thursday afternoon. They were taken to a refugee shelter in the town.

Thirteen left the shelter immediately, saying that they were going "shopping". They did not return, and are believed to have taken trains, or hitch-hiked, back to the Channel coast. The remaining 16 had not yet made formal asylum requests yesterday. The same pattern was reported from 15 other towns which received 250 refugees expelled from Calais on Thursday and Friday ? including 96 who had been expelled from the Saint-Pierre Saint-Paul church.

It was becoming clear that the French authorities and refugees were engaged in a giant game of cat and mouse. Refugees are being systematically swept from the streets of Calais and taken hundreds of miles away, but most are immediately setting out again for the north. Others have set up makeshift camps in the countryside around Calais, from which they attempt to make the increasingly difficult, illegal journey to Britain.
I'll skip my usual lecture about "The Camp of the Saints" and instead go for the best anecdote in the article:
Meanwhile, camp lists have turned up some anomalies: one resident for the past two years turns out to be a homeless 35-year-old British man known only as Chris L. Asked why he's there, he replies: "Because this is the place you find the best Afghan shit [cannabis]."