When xenophobic words become real violence – Media Diversified

3.6.16

When xenophobic words become real violence – Media Diversified: This is not an isolated incident. There have been reports of police aggression, as well as other outside gangs carrying out attacks. M�decins Sans Fronti�res, who provide vital support to the people living in Calais, say every week they see around twelve incidents where people have been violently attacked. And that’s just the ones they come across. Marianne Humbershot, who heads up the legal centre in the camp, told The Independent of the horrors she’s witnessed: “stabbing, strangling and beating with metal sticks. These attacks are against men, women and children. Minors. I have the account of a 10-year-old boy who has been subjected to police violence. I have a 13-year-old who was beaten by police – and 10 days before he had his nose broken by ‘racists’.” No one has yet been held accountable. Crime have been committed but so far there are no criminals.

These campaigns of violence with no visible repercussions should come as little surprise. People living in these camps find few in positions of real power who will properly defend them. Just yesterday, a judge ruled to bulldoze a whole section of the Calais refugee camp with no real plans in place to rehome the people who will lose their makeshift accommodation. Already warnings are in print: they will “use force if necessary”.