Where the Refugees Live
- 2016-08-11
- CityLab
In April 2015, France sanctioned the country’s first official migrant camp on a stretch of land striking distance from a chemical plant on the edge of the port city of Calais. Around 1,000 refugees gathered there, forced from other temporary settlements at the fringes of the city. Since 1999, migrants from the Middle East and North Africa have awaited asylum on the unoccupied land at the outskirts of Calais, unrecognized by the French government. Police would periodically come in to clear the camps and uproot the already displaced.
The government-sanctioned settlement was called The New Jungle, and when the Italian photographer Marco Tiberio began documenting it in May of 2015, a month after its establishment, it was no more than a few houses, hand-built by refugees. By the end of the summer, it had reached peak capacity.