Award of Excellence

"A Family of Strangers"

Dandan, Wessam and Ibrahim from Daraa in Syria met in the refugee camp called Jungle in the fall of 2015 and moved in together shortly thereafter. Back then there were about 3500 refugees in the camp in Calais, France, 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 then they failed dozens of times. Since July 2016, all three are with their relatives in the UK and have applied for asylum. In October 2016 this shelter and the rest of the Jungle was dismantled. Two months earlier the organization Help Refugees counted the number of refugees in the camp to 9106.