[LINK] "Calais refugees grieve for Paris while dreading Islamophobic backlash"
Al Jazeera America's Colette Davidson reports on what seems to me to be the increasingly untenable situation of the refugees in the Calais camp.
Dulbar Karem sits cross-legged in her trailer in the Iraqi section of a refugee camp on the outskirts of Calais which holds thousands of people, many of whom mourned Friday’s attacks in Paris while also fearing that they would lead to an Islamophobic backlash.
“We cried for France that night,” she said, bouncing her 11-month-old daughter, Chawy, on her lap. “We didn’t sleep.”
[. . .]
This sentiment was shared yesterday when about 200 people gathered in the camp’s activities tent to hold a vigil for the victims of the Paris attacks. Camp residents of all nationalities met, holding hands in two circles for three minutes of silence before participants were given the floor to express themselves.
“There were mostly messages of peace and hope, but there were also a lot of apologies from Muslim members of the community,” said Abby Evans, who runs the Hands International vaccinations clinic next door and attended the vigil.
“They weren’t apologizing for themselves,” said Joe Murphy, whose Good Chance theater helped organize the commemoration. “They really wanted to stress that ‘we are not those people - this is not Islam.’”
Dulbar Karem sits cross-legged in her trailer in the Iraqi section of a refugee camp on the outskirts of Calais which holds thousands of people, many of whom mourned Friday’s attacks in Paris while also fearing that they would lead to an Islamophobic backlash.
“We cried for France that night,” she said, bouncing her 11-month-old daughter, Chawy, on her lap. “We didn’t sleep.”
[. . .]
This sentiment was shared yesterday when about 200 people gathered in the camp’s activities tent to hold a vigil for the victims of the Paris attacks. Camp residents of all nationalities met, holding hands in two circles for three minutes of silence before participants were given the floor to express themselves.
“There were mostly messages of peace and hope, but there were also a lot of apologies from Muslim members of the community,” said Abby Evans, who runs the Hands International vaccinations clinic next door and attended the vigil.
“They weren’t apologizing for themselves,” said Joe Murphy, whose Good Chance theater helped organize the commemoration. “They really wanted to stress that ‘we are not those people - this is not Islam.’”