London activists stage protest for refugees
Pro-refugee activists in the United Kingdom have held a die-in protest in the capital London against French plans to destroy parts of a refugee camp in Calais across from the English Channel.
The Saturday protest was organized by ‘London2Calais Convoy’ in response to France’s plans to bulldoze large sections of refugee camp, the Guardian reported.
Protesters staged a “die-in” at St Pancras station in London over the plans to clear an area of the makeshift refugee camp in Calais, known as the Jungle.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered at the Eurostar terminal at noon for the ‘emergency’ protest.
Pictures posted on social media showed police blocking the entrance to the station as protesters attempted to enter. In videos, they could be heard chanting “Not just for the rich and white, freedom of movement is a right,” as well as “Say it loud and say it clear, refugees are welcome here”.
On Friday, asylum seekers living in the Jungle said they would resist efforts to move to new accommodation in converted shipping containers and insisted they wanted to stay in their tents, despite poor living conditions.
Efforts are under way to clear an area of the refugee camp next to a motorway leading to the Calais port, where there have been clashes with police.
A statement posted on ‘London2Calais’s’ page on Facebook, which had nearly 400 people down to attend the protest, said: “The French state is preparing to bulldoze large sections of the so-called ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais.
“Around 2,000 people have been given three days notice of the planned eviction, coerced into applying for asylum in France without providing a real alternative for them to live.
“Many of the people living in the Calais ‘Jungle’, including unaccompanied minors, have close family in the UK. As activists in Britain, we believe that while the ‘Jungle’ is a symptom of the crisis in Calais and Dunkirk, the root cause is British migration and foreign policy.”
The group added that the UK government’s refusal to take in more refugees was unacceptable. “We refuse to accept that there is money to bail out banks and bombing Syria but that there is no money left to help refugees.”
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