Dandan, Wessam and Ibrahim from Daraa in Syria met here in the fall of 2015 and moved in together shortly thereafter. Back then there were about 3500 refugees in the camp and new people arriving every day. In the north part of the Jungle they settled at an area for Syrians, mostly from Daraa. The first few months they tried to get on trains and trucks, but in the end they managed to collect money and chose to pay for smugglers. Even with smugglers they failed dozens of times. Since July 2016, all three are with their relatives in the UK and claimed asylum.

By now there’re about 70 restaurants, shops and several barber shops. Especially at night and early in the morning there’re a lot of people going to get some food and tea after been trying to get to the UK. In spring 2015 many new restaurants were built because of the increasing number of arriving refugees. In the beginning many could afford to buy the cheap food but after months of failing attempts to cross the border many had no money left and the several restaurant businesses went down.

Many refugees lost their homes during the demolition of the southern part of the Jungle in February/March 2016. The options for the roughly 3000 who lost their homes were to apply for asylum in France, moving to the previously built containers or trying to find housing in another camp. Many, however, choose to move to acquaintances in the northern parts of the Jungle which grew dramatically during the year.

Volunteers and refugees were protesting during the demolition and the CRS (French riot control forces) responded with tear gas and water cannon. Several people chose to set their shelter on fire before the forces could destroy it. Others caught on fire because of the tear gas. It took two weeks until the southern area except from a school and the church was demolished.

During traffic jam refugees are trying to stop the trucks to get time to cut them up or to open the lock and get on board. Those who don’t manage to break into are hiding between the tires where the risk of being pinched and trapped is high.In 2015, more than 30 refugees were killed on the highway or by train while trying to get from Calais to the UK.The majority of those who run after the trucks have tried to cross the border for several months. Police checks have increased in 2016 and made it almost impossible to succeed without paying for smugglers.

On December 17, 2015, word spread traffic jam near the tunnel and many marched to the highway to try to climb up on the trucks and make it over to the UK.Shortly thereafter the French police responded with tear gas grenades.At the end of this evening at least twenty Syrians had managed to cross the border in lorries.

Faloan Deoana from Afghanistan opened one of many barbershops in the camp in December. They have three barbers and 14 showers. A haircut costs five euros, a hot shower in the winter three. 
”Particularly in an escape attempt with bought passports it’s important to look good and well groomed”, he says. Faloan has like many others stopped trying and plans to keep on with his business until there’s a chance for him to make it to UK.

Wessam, 21, and his parents fled Syria just before the war broke out and ended up in Jordan. He had to leave his family and arrived in the Jungle October 21, 2015. Among the guys from Daraa, he is called Mama because he’s cooking in their neighborhood. After many attempts and eight months in the camp he was finally united with his brother in Manchester.

Assadik Eshady, 22 from Sudan. He recently applied for asylum in France and left his fingerprint two weeks ago. When the picture was taken, he had lived in the jungle for seven months. "I do not want to risk being hit by a truck and die like several of my friends here”, de said about his decision of applying for asylum in France He started talking about the 18 hours journey by boat from Libya to Italy. "We sat in rows, close proximity to each other so that more would fit. Every time someone died, we had to throw out the person in the water to get a bit more space. Others have it worse and go with about 20 people in rubber boats that nobody knows if the boat will last. " In their small block they call the Buckingham Palace refugees from Ghana, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia are living together. In the middle there’s a large tent with many holes so it can be used as fire tent to keep up the heat at night.

When taking a break from trying to cross the border at night many of them meet at restaurants or like here at a disco. But most of them prefer hanging out with friends in the shops where they can buy everything from soft drinks to mobile chargers and SIM cards. In the evenings the owners are drying tobacco in a pan to make ”jungle cigarettes” as everyone here calls them. Tobacco, filters and papers are imported from Belgium and every big shop makes about a thousand cigarettes per day. A package of ten costs one Euro and thousand cigarettes gives a profit of around ten Euro.

Hadi Elya, 19, is from Pakistan and lives here with her cousins and Zeeshan and Haider. He lived in Austria for 8 months, but did not get a residence permit. After six months in the Jungle, they decided to apply for asylum in France. Now they’ve been waiting for a response and a place to live since February, 2016. He is trying to keep spirits up and rattles off some of his favorite phrases while on the way to the restaurant to charge mobiles. "Everything is just temporary." "God has no religion. We're all human beings, it's all about humanity.”

Police is patrolling around the clock at the beach near the ferry port. Here the refugees have up to four minutes to run along the one kilometer long open beach area and then get past the fences and hide on the other side before the next patrol has passed. There are only few who manage to get all the way to the ferry parking lot and who are not detected in the truck controls or scanner. Once on the ferry it takes 90 minutes to Dover in the UK.