After Calais: Tracing the paths of the Jungle’s refugees
“The 'Jungle' smelled of freshly baked bread and CS gas. I could not breathe and went down. An Afghan who was running in the same direction grabbed me and supported me to the back garden where there was a bit of air”, says Chiara Lauvergnac, one of the activists in Paris from London. In the final days of the Calais Jungle demolition, over 10,000 refugees were ordered to relocate in one week by riot police squads armed with flashballs, gas grenades, rubber bullets, automatic rifles, water cannons, armoured vehicles, truncheons and gas spray bottles.
“Usually the camp got gassed towards the end of the day - you could climb the hill to try escape the gas clouds and watch the sunset from there, with gas grenades falling all around,” she continued. After the destruction of the camp, she says