Reported on 29.01.2024
Testimony shared by a Punjabi man living in Calais for a few months, trying to cross the English Channel to visit a family member.
“When we go to the police they won’t help us. They just give us jail when we go to the supermarket to purchase anything, they give us the jails. Like 24 hours or 48 hours, they don’t want to listen to us.”
“The first time the police came into the camp, it was fear. We got into jail. It was like the fear of the first person, fear of the child to hold the fire, he doesn’t know what is fire.”
“The second time it was casual. They will get you in jail, maybe one day we will be out. The third and fourth time it was casual, it is now like the daily soap we have to apply to our body. It is like the daily thing.”
“24/7 we have the stress of the mind, like some person will come, they will stab on the chest, like we will die one day over here, sleeping in the tent”
“Maybe they think that we will stab someone. Really, we stab someone? They are stabbing us. They are stabbing us in our minds. Not in the chest, they are stabbing us in our minds. One day we will be killed. Our mind is being killed, Everyday, a new problem, a new situation.”
“Because of this we feel fear, always fear, fear.”
“My friends were going over there [to the water tank] and were attacked by five to six people, two people being attacked by six people. He was carrying to cans, one for my friend and his. He was carrying two cans and six people came over. He had to throw the cans and run for his life, otherwise they would stab him.”
“Recently one of the people mixed something in the water. Maybe to kill us. We have to call the Calais water service [referring to Calais Food Collective], to ask they to please change the water. It was a French person I don’t know. He was white. He peed on the water tank and mixed something in the water.”