FRANCE CLOSES ‘JUNGLE’ CAMP

ASYLUM-SEEKERS

• Carrying their belongings in bags and suitcases, long lines of migrants waited calmly in chilly temperatures Monday to board buses in the French port city of Calais, as authorities began evacuating the squalid camp they call home.

French authorities were beginning a complex operation to shut down the makeshift camp known as “the jungle,” uprooting thousands who made treacherous journeys to escape wars, dictators or grinding poverty.

Closely watched by more than 1,200 police, the first of hundreds of buses began transferring migrants to reception centres around France where they can apply for asylum. The camp will then be levelled in a weeklong operation.

Authorities say the camp holds nearly 6,500 migrants who are seeking to get to Britain. Aid groups say there are more than 8,300.

The harsh reality of the move hit migrants on Monday.

Throngs of people lined up at the registration centre where they were separated by category, such as families, unaccompanied minors or adults.

But basic information was lacking for many. “What should I do?” asked a newly arrived 14-year-old Afghan.

Afghan Imran Khan, 35, risks expulsion if he accepts the French plan to move him to a reception centre, because his fingerprints were taken in another European country before he arrived in France. Under European rules, he must be sent back to the country where he first registered.

“I will decide tomorrow (what to do),” he said.

Khan lives in a muddy tent, one of hundreds that are expected to be destroyed by the end of the week as their occupants depart, gradually closing down the camp that sprang up behind an official shelter housing women and providing showers and daily meals.

Unaccompanied minors, many with family members in Britain, were to be housed on-site in containers set up earlier this year as their files are studied in London to see if they qualify for a transfer across the English Channel. The humanitarian organization France Terre d’Asile says 1,291 unaccompanied minors live in the camp.

The unofficial camp, which sprang up 18 months ago, was previously tolerated but given almost no state help. Aid groups, and hundreds of British volunteers, have provided basic necessities.

The forced departure of thousands is an enormous task, planned for months.

Authorities have had practice. They dismantled the southern half of the camp in March, a chaotic, even brutal, bulldozing operation that drew complaints from human rights groups.

This time, authorities hope to restore some pride by closing the camp, which has been seen as a national disgrace, in a peaceful, humane operation.