THE MOSAIC II - The European Jungle - Oscar B. Castillo's Portfolio

THE MOSAIC - Inside the European Jungle.

Hundreds of miles walked, hundreds of bombs dodged. Desert, seas, fields and cities. Dictators, allies, smugglers, militias. All that have been sorted out and is in France, the land of "Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité" that the dreams and the road to freedom get blocked. Ironies of these current times.

"The Jungle" in french northern city of Calais is a makeshift immigrants camp that for years has been recieving people without resident papers on their transit towards United Kingdom. This problem has had its ups and downs and even some momentary solutions but recent wave of massive immigration to Europe has represented a very challenging process to all actors involved in the situation.

Some six thousand people conform today this polyglot and multiethnic mosaic. From babies to very old persons, from ill elders to very healthy young men, from odd workers to engineers, passing by the dissidents, the ex-supporters, the christians, the muslims, the hindus, the anarchists, the fraudsters... All, marked by their own personal background and by the dream of reaching family and friends in London or Manchester, live in very difficult and unhealthy conditions. Some make of this hard times some profitable period.

Side by side the afghan translator left behind by the US Troops spend some time with the sudanese teacher that recently escaped from libyan militias. Some meters away prays the syrian student that fled from Raqqa before the coallition or the russians or the government or all together bomb the debris left by the islamists. On the side shack a group of kurdish men sing and drink some beers while the Ethiopians play some football waiting that a Pakistani baker has the bread ready. The iraki kid is cold, as is the erithrean lady. The egyptian cooker helps cooking for other refugees while thinking how to make his underage brother arrives on the other side. People is tired but play cricket, people is tired but try to jump inside the trucks, people is tired but walk over the frozen ground, people is tired but protest (with reasons and without), and tired as they are they can run away from the tear gas and the flash balls. People is tired and don't understand any orders, but even tired they organize themselves and wait in line and share the donations. Or attack the other and stab the friend and insult the neighbor. People is tired and the horizon seems to move farther.

This place has become an overcrowded slum that seems to solidify day after day in front of the two options taken by the government: inaction on one side by always waiting for associations and volunteers to solve the proximity issues and for the problem to grow until it comes out of control. Repression on the other side by smashing the little achievements reached by the same workers that attemp to built social links and launch the paramount process of inclusion. Little has been done to prevent this huge problem to be the roots of segregation and ghettoization in a city full of anger and already hit hard by the economic crisis.

A little trauma made of negligence and aggressivity could seem not so much for those traumatized by massacres, famine and persecution but it adds some pain and dispair to people in need of support and guidance and, overall, of a bridge to integration. Another fence, another raid, another control could seem necessary due to the current extreme situation and the daily menaces -more than menaces- on this side, but is to understand that these people are the main victims of those very same menaces and have in their own bodies and minds the scars of the wars we here are very afraid of.

"The Jungle" and its different periods, and similar camps like "Grande Synthe" or Idomeni in Greece, are the consequences of bigger geopolitical issues in which France plays an important role and has to assume its part in the solution. Not only in the military bang bang and the erradication of the threat (that is today internal and born and rised in its own soil) but in the construction of a long term project that will, while the original problem of war get solved, help bringing back the dignity to the immigrants and, through that, built the coexistance needed to don't have in 10, 15 or 20 years fragmented communities that don't belong to the place they live in.

Vertical: A pakistani immigrant from the area of Peshawar stands up in the middle of "The Jungle" main road. Horizontal: A blanket with a printed british flag hangs as door for a shack where 3 syrian refugees sleep. Some 5.000 people inhabit the refugee camp known as "The Jungle" while trying to reach UK. French and UK governments have tightened the controls making it very hard for immigrants to cross and living them stocked inside the camp, other options still not very clear like temporary shelter in some other areas of France or shelter in the containers area where sleeping conditions are better but where the next steps still very uncertain.

View of the facades of different houses and shelters of "The Jungle" refugee camp in Calais - France. Some 5.000 people including children, elderly persons and many people with different handicaps live in very precarious conditions in an area known for it cold weather, strong winds and continous rains.

Vertical: Mohammed, 27 yrs old from Syria stands for a picture while waiting in the woods to try to reach the highway and the trucks in the way to the train. Horizontal: View of an urban area of Calais from the woods where immigrants wait to try to hide inside a truck to reach UK. For many immigrants Calais is a city that seems pretty much like their ideal place to stay. Many do not have too many ideas about the real living conditions in UK or other european countries.

At the end of the day a sudanese refugee takes a look at the camp from a hill that serves at the highest point of the area.

Vertical: View of the external structure of the makeshift barracks where live the inhabitants of the refugee camp in Calais. Horizontal: Mohammed, 30 years old, at his tent in "The Jungle" refugee camp. These tents are usually built by the refugees themselves with help and materials gave by NGO's and volunteers helping on the ground.

Sadam, 17 years old (in the center) works the ground in "The Jungle" area where he, together with a couple of friends, will put a new house, more solid and resistant.

Vertical: A young syrian refugee looks for dry straw to make some fire and warm a group that is waiting on the woods to try to reach the trucks on their way to UK. Horizontal: View of dry straw in "The Jungle" camp where people has to make use of any "flammable" thing to warm themselves, it could be wood from the area or donated by volunteers but also very pollutant things like old tents and clothes.

Vertical: A drawing of a typical hut with a sudanese flag on top is seen painted on a wall of a collective tent where sleep sudanese refugees. Horizontal: View of a frozen muddy pond in the middle of "The Jungle" camp. Even if the camp structure has been getting more solid, the shacks where people are living still very basic to face the cold winter in Calais with snow, heil, heavy rains and strong winds.

View of a common makeshift house of "The Jungle" refugee camp in Calais - France. Some 5.000 people including children, elderly persons and many people with different handicaps live in very precarious conditions in an area known for it cold weather, strong winds and continous rains.

An Iraki Kurdish kid stands up for a picture in fron of the tents immigrants live in Dunkirk camp. Refugees camps have a high population of minors, many of them unaccompanied that are very exposed to tear gas and police actions. Horizontal: An Afghan refugee of "The Jungle" camp shows a picture on his cellphone of last charge of police forces with tear gas.

At the main entrance of "The Jungle" camp in Calais, people run away from the tear gas police threw to disperse a line of people recieving aid by international aid workers, many of them, as many of the immigrants, elder people with sensitive body for the tear gas.

Vertical: View of an still life of the kind of tear gas canister used by CRS body of French police forces to disperse the crowd. Horizontal: Inmigrant inhabitants of "The Jungle" run away from the cloud of tear gas the police forces recently threw to disperse a line of people waiting for food and clothes.

Vertical: View of a tagged portable toilet with the message "One cop, one bullet". The role of police has been very criticized by aid workers and associations for the heavy use of tear gas inside a camp where elder people and children live. On the other hand many young inhabitants of the camp have also looked for confrontation and clashed with police forces. Horizontal: Refugees make a long line at the main entrance of the camp to recieve some food and clothes given by aid workers. Minutes after and without any apparent reason police forces dispersed the line and charged with tear gas and flash balls.

From left to right: Syria, Sudan, Afganistan, Pakistan, Irak. Different asylum seekers and refugees stand for a picture. The diversity of nationalities and causes of the migration process is very vast counting more than 15 different origins. The presence of women in the camps of Calais is very rare and due to cultural and religious practices women don't move too often around the camp areas, some women however are seen around, mostly chirstians from Erithrea and Ethiopia. In Dunkirk the female presence is much more evident, mostly kurdish women from Syria and Irak.

Vertical: At Grande Synthe camp in Dunkirk a Kuwaiti young child hang around with a mask, in carnival days many people in this area of the camp where playing with different masks. Horizontal: A refugee man shows a toy rat he says is like the ones that abound in the camp. Lack of sanitary services and effective trash dumping and collecting make the rats a big problem that has been growing with the arriving of warmer days.

A syrian refugee laughs and claps at the joke of an explosion of a camping gas empty can threw in the fire by a friend.

Vertical: A Kurdish flag waves on the air at "The Jungle" camp. Horizontal: Kurdish men hang around together playing and singing some typical kurdish music. The refugees camps in the area of Calais and Dunkirk have recieve and in some way bring together the kurdish popultion of different areas, mostly from Syria and Irak.

At a sunny afternoon Afghan refugees play cricket in an area known as the 100 meters, a place formerly inhabited by inmigrants that police forced into other areas of the camp to better control the possible access to haighway tracks leading to the port.

A group of afghan refugees play volleyball with a net given by voluteers. Rare moments of sun bring always people together for some sport and outdoor games. This area was formerly part of the camp land but police forces pushed, with some force excess, the inmigrants towards other areas of the camp.

View of a kid riding a bicycle in the main road inside "The Jungle" refugee camp in french northern city of Calais in the border with La Manche Channel and Great Britain territory. Some 5.000 inmigrants of different origins inhabit this makeshift camp while waiting to try their chance to cross to UK.

Vertical: Ahmed is 7 or 8 years old, his older brother doesn't remember so good. He is from Afghanistan and just arrived in "The Jungle" without any warm clothes and shoes. Horizontal: My foot print on the ground of "The Jungle" camo in Calais after I woke up late at night to go to the toilet and realized it was snowing and all ponds froze. Cold winds, heil and rains are part of the daily extreme weather refugees must endure while living in the makeshift camps like the ones in Calais and Dunkirk.

Alaa, a 17 yrs old boy from Syria stands for a picture in the middle of a camp in Calais while waiting to try his chance to jump in a truck that will take him to UK where his mother and brother live. Some 455 minors were count in a census carried by aid workers, 350 of them being unaccompanied immigrants. Horizontal: A group of syrian young boys, some of them minors, play with sticks and have a sword fight.

A group of syrian refugees warm themselves in the woods close to the highway while of them prays. Groups of refugees daily walk for hours to try to reach a truck and hide inside to get a train or a boat that cross La Manche Channel and take them to UK.

Vertical: A syrian refugee shows his cellphone with an application that say the different times for muslim prays. Horizontal: At the christian church of "The Jungle" an Erithrean man prays in front of different images of Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary. Inside "The Jungle" many religions coexist without evident religious tension.

Vertical: An image of Jesus Christ is seen hanging on a wall of the Christian Church inside "The Jungle" camp. The camp has a vast majority of muslim population but many other religions coexist inside like Christians or also Hindus and varieties of Islam. Horizontal: Mohammed, 25 yrs old from Daraa Province in Syria, prays in the middle of a camp while a group of syrian refugees wait close to the highway to try their chance of jumping into the trucks that possibily could take them to a ferry or train and therefore to UK.

A member of police forces controls the door of a train to prevent immigrants to jump in and move to other towns of the area and cities of France. Due to the increasing control measures many more immigrants are stocked in Calais as they are unable to continue towards UK or to go back to some other cities or countries.

Vertical: Mohammed, 25 yrs old from Daraa province in Syria shows a picture of himself when recently arrived in Greece Lesvos Island after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkish side. Most of the asylum seekers from Syria, Irak, Afghanistan follow this same riskful path. Horizontal: A group of syrian boys and men walk in the middle of a camp on their way to a place where they can try their chance to jump inside a truck and try to reach UK.

Vertical and Horizontal: A Kurdish refugee from Irak shows the wounds caused by an attack with a knife carried by a Kurdish smuggler that wanted to charge some money to let the wounded man try to hide in the trucks around the area.

Vertical: Isahan, 17 yrs old from Afghanistan, stands for a picture while "The Jungle" inhabitants play some open air sports. He was forced to flee his hometown of Baghlan after talibans killed his father and then from Kabul he quitted the country. Horizontal: Bismallah, 24 yrs old from Kabul slide his hand between the fences of the container area where he now lives to show a picture of himself working as a translator for USA military bodies in Afghanistan. Due to his job he was continously menaced in the mission areas but lately menaces became more regular and also in Kabul so he decided to flee.

A complete family with 3 children arrives in "The Jungle" camp at night. Even if population inside the camp has been reducing with people trying to reach UK from other departing points, many people still arriving to the camps as part of the continous wave of immigration mostly from wartorn countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan or Irak.

At the main entrance of "The Jungle" camp a syrian refugee talks by phone under a light pole. Reinforcement of control in the border and the ways to access the train and the port with destination to UK have forced immigrants to try new routes many times with more risks and exposed to smugglers, mafias and extreme hate groups.

View of the refugee camp known as "The Jungle" in french northern city of Calais in the border with La Manche Channel and Great Britain territory. Some 5.000 inmigrants of different origins inhabit this makeshift camp while waiting to try their chance to cross to UK.