2015-12-26theguardian.com

... this is what's so strange -- there is nobody in charge. If this had been a conventional disaster, the United Nations would have come in and then the big aid agencies would have got busy. But this is Europe, which is meant to be beyond the need of such help. So the UN and UNHCR are not in Calais, while there's little sign of Oxfam, Save the Children or the Red Cross. That's not because they don't care: aid workers tell visiting politicians they feel they have no mandate to operate in Europe...

As for the French and British governments, their only presence comes in the form of uniformed security personnel policing the barbed wire perimeter, watching -- but not helping -- the people within, tasked with preventing them breaking out and heading for the tunnel or sea that might take them to England. The camp has been left instead to the volunteers.



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