Calais ‘Jungle’ demolition: Stark choice for camp residents as bulldozers loom

They’ve spent months, even years, living in squalid tents, makeshift shelters and tumbledown caravans at the side of a motorway in northern France.

Through it all — rain, cold and mud; boredom, anger and fear — they’ve been sustained by the hope of someday making it to the UK, just 30 miles away across the English Channel.

But today, that dream is over for most of the 6,000 to 10,000 migrants and refugees living in “The Jungle” camp, as French authorities begin the evacuation of the patch of wasteland they’ve made their home.

Their options were laid out in a leaflet distributed by volunteers on Sunday evening. 

“Everybody living in the Calais jungle will have to leave in order to be sheltered in one of the French reception and counseling centers,” the letter reads.

“You will receive help and the necessary information on the procedures that you will need to follow if you have applied or wish to apply for asylum.”

The government has offered them two choices: claim asylum and move to another area of France, or return to their countries of origin.

Emotions ran high in the camp all weekend as news of the impending demolition began to spread. 

“It’s very tense because people know that change is coming,” Sue Jex, of charity Care 4 Calais told CNN. “There is a real acceptance that the camp is going (away).”

Late Sunday night, riot police were out in force, and some 1,250 police have been called in to prevent crowd control problems on Monday.

“Police services have been mobilized in large numbers — that’s not to push, but to secure the zone,” said French Interior Ministry spokesman, Pierre-Henry Brandet.

Migrants will ‘not be forced’

Thousands has started to gather up their meager belongings and head to the processing center — a short walk from the camp — where their fate will be decided.

To get there, they will walk under the road leading to the cross-channel ferry, as truck after truck hurries on its way to the UK. They will head past the “Great Wall of Calais,” a high fence topped with barbed wire, constructed to stop camp residents risking their lives trying to stow away on the lorries.

Once at the center — in the middle of an industrial zone — they will be made to join one of four lines; lone migrants, families, those considered ‘at risk’ (elderly, ill or disabled people, and pregnant women) and unaccompanied minors.

They will then be herded through heavy red doors into a pebble-dashed hangar.

In bright blue tents pitched inside, they’ll be asked their decision: to apply for asylum or to return to where they came from. 

Those who opt to stay in France will be shown a map and offered the choice of two regions.

They will then be handed a wristband signaling which they picked, before being taken to a bus and driven there almost immediately. Sixty buses will be on hand Monday, with 45 more available Tuesday.

But Brandet says migrants will not be forced to get on board. “This will be done on a voluntary basis and no coercive measures will be taken towards the migrants.”

“We can’t force anyone to get on a bus and go to regions where they don’t want to go. You have to convince them, and continue to do so. Tomorrow is an important day, but this will take several days.”

Children waiting for answers

Unaccompanied minors will be interviewed by French and British authorities to determine if they should be rehomed in Britain, under an agreement offering refuge to children and vulnerable young people.

They will be kept in a temporary shelter at the camp until a decision is made in their case.

Fabianne Buccio, head of the Pas de Calais local government authority said Sunday that about 200 children had been relocated to the UK during the past week. A UK Home Office spokesman declined to confirm that number. 

CNN met two unaccompanied minors who have spent months trying to reach the UK — so far without success. After so long waiting for answers, they are both beginning to lose hope.

Muhammad, 14, left his home in Afghanistan more than a year ago and traveled across 12 countries in 75 days to reach Calais.

He’s waiting to find out if he will be allowed in to the UK, to be reunited with his uncle’s family.

For now, though, his home is one of the white shipping containers that make up the provisional welcome center (CAP) in the heart of the Jungle.

He shares it with 12 other youngsters, but says he has no friends left in Calais.

“They have all left for England,” he explained. “They are in families now, in London, Birmingham, all areas in the UK. They are going to school.”

“I have made many attempts to get to England. The first time there were 15 of us, but the helicopter saw us and put its light on us, and police with dogs caught us.”

Riaz is also 14 and from Afghanistan, where he says his mother and father were killed in a bomb blast when he was just four years old. 

He and his cousin spent eight months traveling to reach Calais. They hope to move to the UK to live with another cousin, who works as a security guard in Manchester.

Riaz spent three days in “The Jungle” before being taken in by NGO Terre d’Asil. He has spent the past three months living in a hostel run by the group, but still doesn’t know when he’ll make it to England. 

Thousands of the encampment’s residents may know by the end of today what their future holds.

But for Riad and Muhammad, it may not happen quite so quickly.