As dawn breaks over Calais’ “Jungle” migrant camp on Tuesday, many of its residents will wake up in the camp for the final time; today authorities will begin dismantling the shacks, tents and shelters that more than 10,000 people called home.
At 8am, (2aET), authorities in the port town in northern France say “cleaners” will move in to start clearing the site, a thorn in the side of the French government for years, and a gritty and unwelcome symbol of Europe’s migrant crisis.
Over the next weeks, contractors are expected to tear down the temporary homes of thousands of people who moved here after lengthy and often treacherous journeys to Europe from Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan.
The French government aims to empty the camp of people within a week or so, and to clear the entire site by the end of December.
Migrants and refugees came to the Jungle hoping it would be a brief stop on their way to Britain but, faced with tightened security at Calais’ ferry port and channel tunnel terminals, they found getting into the country far harder than they expected.
‘Many children will disappear’, NGO warns
Save the Children, one of many NGOs working with the camp’s youngest residents, has called for the demolition to be halted while the safety of the estimated 1,200 children living there is assured.
The group says vulnerable youngsters in the camp are at risk, and it fears “many children may disappear” if the site is cleared before they are found safe places to stay.
“We are deeply concerned for the fate of hundreds of children who remain and who do not know where they will sleep tonight, and have no information on what tomorrow may bring,” Carolyn Miles, the NGO’s president, said late Monday in a statement.
“There is no way the demolition can start until all children have been properly identified and provided for — to do otherwise would be unconscionable,” she added.
More than 2,000 refugees and migrants were evacuated from the camp Monday, according to France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
The minister said 1,918 adults had been taken to 80 shelters across the country, and 400 children placed in temporary shelters, on the first day of the resettlement program.
“My family is in England”
Buses loaded with hundreds more residents of the Jungle are expected to be bussed to new homes around France on Tuesday as the dismantling of the camp begins in earnest.
But some appear determined to stay at almost any cost; a handful of people were involved in skirmishes with riot police at the site late Monday, throwing stones at officers who responded by firing tear gas rounds towards them.
Earlier in the day, two Afghan residents of the camp told CNN they would not leave the camp, because to do so would mean turning their backs on a long-held dream to make it to Britain.
“I’m going to England,” 15-year-old Afghan teenager Hussein said. “I don’t like France. My family is in England.”
His friend, who declined to give his name, said he would be going to UK and would refuse to leave the Jungle.
It remains unclear just how French authorities will deal with those who refuse point blank to move out; before the evacuation program began, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said migrants would not be forced to board buses and leave the town.
“This will be done on a voluntary basis and no coercive measures will be taken towards the migrants,” he said.