‘JUNGLE’ MIGRANT CAMP IN CALAIS TO BE DESTROYED.
Court orders part of migrant camp torn down
CALAIS, FRANCE• A French court gave the state the green light Thursday to raze tents and lean-tos sheltering hundreds of migrants in a sprawling slum camp in Calais, where thousands dream of getting to Britain.
The camp in the northern port city — known as the “jungle” — has been an embarrassing and often shocking chapter in Europe’s migrant crisis. The government announced this month the densely populated southern half would be cleared.
Associations protesting the move took the issue to court seeking a postponement of a deadline reached last Tuesday for migrants to move out.
The court in Lille ruled the makeshift shelters used by the migrants can be destroyed, but that common spaces like places of worship, schools and a library must stand. Demolition crews have been poised to start what officials say will be a better solution for migrants trapped in Calais with borders all but sealed by increasing security.
Officials estimate the number of migrants who will be affected at 800 to 1,000. Humanitarian organizations say more than 3,000 live there.
Moving them out of the mini- slum will be the most dramatic step by France to end Calais’ years- long migrant problem, which has transformed the city into a tension point, fuelled farright sentiment, and defied British and French government efforts to make it go away.
In November, the Lille court ordered the government to clean up the camp by adding running water, toilets and garbage bins, and counting the number of minors without families — now 326 — and helping those in distress. Saving the migrants’ temporary homes from bulldozers became a mass effort by volunteers, humanitarian groups and a dose of star power. British actor Jude Law visited last weekend and 260 French public figures signed a petition against destroying the camp.
Authorities cited security and sanitation concerns, and the increasingly tarnished image of Calais, a city of nearly 80,000 that takes pride in drawing tourists to its Opal Coast. Its prime location — with a major ferry port, Eurotunnel rail system and truck traffic crossing the English Channel — has put it in the crosshairs of the migrant crisis.
Residents have mostly learned to live with migrants in their midst. But tensions rose when the camp spiked to 6,000 last fall before dropping to 4,000 more recently. An increasingly vocal backlash is punctuated by militiastyle violence. Truckers have grown exasperated or fearful of increasingly bold tactics by migrants trying to sneak rides across the Channel.
The area targeted for destruction is dotted with rickety shops, cafés, places of worship and schools, built by aid groups and the migrants, most of whom travelled from conflict zones like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, or to escape human rights abuses or poverty in African nations.
Weary travellers come to Calais driven by a dream — circulated among migrants, peddled by smugglers — that they will find peace and prosperity in Britain. Lacking papers, they have to sneak across the Channel. At least 20 have died trying since late June, authorities say.
Camp residents were offered the choice of being sent to temporary centres around France, or staying in one of 125 heated containers set up last month in a fenced-in area behind the camp.
“It’s inhuman to live in the jungle. But certain associations, certain billionaire stars are telling us to leave things alone,” the head of the region, conservative Xavier Bertrand, said during a visit last weekend. “That’s enough. The jungle must be evacuated.”
Humanitarian workers predicted those who refuse to leave would shelter in small groups elsewhere around Calais and the coast. “You’re basically going to scatter a lot of people,” said Maya Konforti of the association Auberge des Migrants.
An Afghan who identified himself only as Jan said he would look elsewhere for a shelter if the jungle were closed. “They are the government …. We can’t fight with them,” he said.
A Red Cross- run camp in nearby Sangatte, used during its three-year existence by about 68,000 refugees, was closed in 2002. Afterward, hundreds moved to set up small camps around Calais.
Authorities periodically razed them, then opened a state- sponsored day centre in April with showers, outlets to charge phones and a meal distribution centre. That lured migrants chased from inside the city, who pitched camp nearby.
Authorities allowed the camp to grow, and it evolved into a squalid slum town with some amenities of urban life that injected a sense of solidarity and conviviality into migrants’ bleak lives.