France clears sprawling ‘Jungle’ migrant camp
calais (France) — France began clearing the sprawling “Jungle” migrant camp on Monday as hundreds gave up on their dreams of reaching Britain, a tantalisingly short sea crossing away.
Following sporadic outbreaks of unrest on Sunday night, the migrants chose instead with calm resignation to be relocated in France while their asylum requests are considered.
By lunchtime more than 700 had left the squalid shanty-town outside Calais on France’s northern coast for reception centres across the country. Hundreds more queued outside a hangar, waiting to be processed before the bulldozers move in.
French officials celebrated the peaceful start to yet another attempt to dismantle the camp, which has become a symbol of Europe’s failure to respond to the migration crisis as member states squabble over who should take in those fleeing war and poverty.
But some aid workers warned that the trouble on Sunday night, when some migrants burned toilet blocks and threw stones at riot police in protest at the camp’s closure, indicated tensions could escalate. —
calais — Migrants lugging their meagre belongings boarded buses on Monday taking them from the Calais “Jungle” under a French plan to raze the notorious camp that has become a symbol of Europe’s refugee crisis.
“Bye Bye, Jungle!” a group of migrants shouted as they hauled luggage through the muddy lanes of the shantytown where thousands from Africa and the Middle East had holed up, desperate to sneak into Britain.
Around 1,200 police officers — some in riot gear — were on hand as scores of Sudanese and Eritrean men queued from dawn outside a hangar to be among the first to be put on coaches for shelters across France.
“We don’t know yet where we are going, but it will obviously be better than the Jungle, which was made for animals not humans,” said Wahid, a 23-year-old Afghan.
The first coachload carrying 50 Sudanese left at about 8:45am, heading for the Burgundy region of east-central France.
By midday, several hundred people were standing in line and 16 buses were already on the road.
As the crowd swelled, police intervened to break up a scuffle and prevent a stampede but the operation was generally proceeding “in a calm and orderly manner”, according to Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. Demolition crews will on Tuesday move in to start tearing down the camp, one of the biggest in Europe where 6,000-8,000 people, among them an estimated 1,300 children, have been living for months. Officials said they aimed to relocate up to 2,500 people on the first day and complete the operation by Wednesday evening. Christian Salome, head of the Auberge des Migrants (Migrants’ Hostel) said that those who departed had been impatient to leave. “I’m much more concerned about later in the week when the only ones remaining are those who do not want to leave, who still want to reach England,” he said. —