France clear camps as migrants leave Calais
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
CALAIS, France — French crews began disassembling makeshift shelters Tuesday, removing tarpaulins and scrap materials that made up the so-called “Jungle” migrant camp near Calais.
On the second day of a weeklong operation to remove the squalid camp and encourage migrants gathered near the port city to stay in France, hundreds of people boarded buses to leave Calais.
By midday, a regional spokesman said some 16 buses had left the registration center carrying more than 650 migrants to accommodation centers throughout France where they can apply for asylum.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told the lower house of parliament in the afternoon that more than 1,000 had been sheltered Tuesday, coming after the 1,918 adults and 400 unaccompanied minors were taken from the makeshift camp on the first day of the government operation. By the second day, the authorities said, some 4,000 migrants, including 772 minors, had been “sheltered.”
Migrants lined up Tuesday jostled with police, but a prefecture spokesman said there were no injuries. There were also no violent confrontations with police overnight, ahead of the second day of the operation to dismantle the migrant camp.
More than 100 unaccompanied minors with family in Britain have crossed the English Channel since Oct. 17, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said.
For many of the migrants bused from the Jungle to temporary housing around the country, the mood was grim as they were greeted with protests.
Adding to the grimness was news from the UNHCR that the harrowing journey across the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe has become increasingly deadly for asylum seekers.
Nearly as many migrants have died at sea this year as all of last year, the refugee agency said Tuesday.
“This is by far the worst we have ever seen,” said William Spindler, a spokesman for the UNHCR, who blamed more dangerous smuggling methods, repeated tries to get across the sea and the strained capacity of rescue services.