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Version 10 Version 11
Calais refugee camp: first buses leave as police prepare for demolition – live Calais refugee camp: first buses leave as police prepare for demolition – live
(35 minutes later)
11.34am BST
11:34
600 people bussed away from Calais camp by 11.30am
By 11:30, 600 refugees & migrants had left by bus to places including burgundy, north eastern France, western France #calais
Updated
at 11.35am BST
11.31am BST
11:31
Our reporters have arrived back at the processing queues and say that all is now calm in the area. We will keep an eye on the situation.
11.24am BST
11:24
The Press Association has filed a few lines on the unrest among people waiting to be processed and transferred away from Calais. Details of what is happening are still very patchy, but according to this PA update from just after 11am:
Dozens of riot police marched in to control the queue, as people started to push and shove at the front just before midday.
While a few punches were thrown in scuffles, most of the crowd waited patiently inside the barriers which police then spread out to give them more space.
Police have formed a barrier to prevent people queuing from behind from joining the fray until the situation becomes less volatile.
Our video team has taken the footage from the tweet below and republished it the right way round.
Updated
at 11.34am BST
11.15am BST
11:15
Scuffles reported as police surround queueing evictees
Refugee Info Bus, a charity working with migrants at the Calais camp, reports that tensions are rising in the registration queues. The organisation has tweeted video, unfortunately on its side, that seems to show scuffles breaking out between evictees and French police.
Lack of #info & #organisation leading to panic. #unnaccompaniedminors caught up in this. pic.twitter.com/mLEG8Z7DJu
People have been kettled outside the registration warehouse. #police and #CRS surrounding them. pic.twitter.com/fCjVnexSfP
People are being kettled in the registration area, meaning tensions are rising. pic.twitter.com/FoLVSQA1OY
Confusion and people being turned away from queues as they try to register to leave the #calaisjungle pic.twitter.com/PkVdunAsQw
Updated
at 11.26am BST
11.07am BST
11:07
A charity working to help people living in the Calais camp has just reported that the registration line for unaccompanied children has been closed. I’ve asked our reporters on the ground if they are able to find out any more details.
The registration line for children has just been closed. #Unaccompaniedchildren have been told to "come back tomorrow". 👧🏾👦🏿
This tweet, from a second group working with people in the camp, shows some of the tear gas canisters fired during unrest there in recent days.
An assortment of some of the #teargas canisters fired throughout the #calaisjungle the past days #acab #policeviolence pic.twitter.com/pLnJ136Z59
10.55am BST10.55am BST
10:5510:55
Demonstrations against the closure of the Calais camp and the treatment of the people there are planned in several French towns and cities today and later this week.Demonstrations against the closure of the Calais camp and the treatment of the people there are planned in several French towns and cities today and later this week.
Rallies are slated to start at about 6pm local time today in Brest, Chateaubriant, Nantes, Paris, Rennes and Toulouse. Tomorrow there will be a demonstration in Dijon and on Friday protesters will gather in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins.Rallies are slated to start at about 6pm local time today in Brest, Chateaubriant, Nantes, Paris, Rennes and Toulouse. Tomorrow there will be a demonstration in Dijon and on Friday protesters will gather in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins.
Read more at squat.net.Read more at squat.net.
10.51am BST10.51am BST
10:5110:51
Pain? Fever? Cough? Written beside shack where Syrians had been living in #Calais camp pic.twitter.com/6093WDAqCSPain? Fever? Cough? Written beside shack where Syrians had been living in #Calais camp pic.twitter.com/6093WDAqCS
10.35am BST10.35am BST
10:3510:35
Lisa O'CarrollLisa O'Carroll
Cynics on social media have been commenting on the apparent lack of any visible minors pictured boarding buses or navigating their way through the Calais camp evacuation. This tweet from my colleague Lisa O’Carroll suggests why:Cynics on social media have been commenting on the apparent lack of any visible minors pictured boarding buses or navigating their way through the Calais camp evacuation. This tweet from my colleague Lisa O’Carroll suggests why:
Kids been given these badges to stop photos been taken getting in or off the buses. This is a 13 year old boy pic.twitter.com/ycISGrQMRuKids been given these badges to stop photos been taken getting in or off the buses. This is a 13 year old boy pic.twitter.com/ycISGrQMRu
However, it has not stopped her from tweeting this unidentifiable photo of a youngster being chaperoned towards processing centres ahead of their evacuation from the camp.However, it has not stopped her from tweeting this unidentifiable photo of a youngster being chaperoned towards processing centres ahead of their evacuation from the camp.
Some of the first children - these two look like seven years old - taken to the processing centre. pic.twitter.com/HQzWJWEzdQSome of the first children - these two look like seven years old - taken to the processing centre. pic.twitter.com/HQzWJWEzdQ
10.29am BST10.29am BST
10:2910:29
'My wife prays we can be together one day''My wife prays we can be together one day'
Angelique ChrisafisAngelique Chrisafis
Among people remaining in the camp, adults with family in the UK were concerned if they would ever be able to be together again, Angelique Chrisafis reports.Among people remaining in the camp, adults with family in the UK were concerned if they would ever be able to be together again, Angelique Chrisafis reports.
Tafsu, 48, a carpenter who had fled violence in Eritrea had a wife and two children in London. He said he hadn’t seen his 16 year-old son for nine years. He had never met his 9-year-old daughter. When he last saw his wife, in Sudan, she was pregnant.Tafsu, 48, a carpenter who had fled violence in Eritrea had a wife and two children in London. He said he hadn’t seen his 16 year-old son for nine years. He had never met his 9-year-old daughter. When he last saw his wife, in Sudan, she was pregnant.
“I don’t know what the future holds. I want to explain my case but I can’t get heard. The children here are beginning to be heard. What about us, people with children, separated from our sons and daughters?”“I don’t know what the future holds. I want to explain my case but I can’t get heard. The children here are beginning to be heard. What about us, people with children, separated from our sons and daughters?”
He was weighing up what to do. Trying to stow away to England had proved impossible, he said. He was considering whether to join the queue of people leaving on buses to reception centres around France, to be processed in France and hope to join his family at a later point. ‘My wife just prays we can be together one day.’He was weighing up what to do. Trying to stow away to England had proved impossible, he said. He was considering whether to join the queue of people leaving on buses to reception centres around France, to be processed in France and hope to join his family at a later point. ‘My wife just prays we can be together one day.’
UpdatedUpdated
at 10.29am BSTat 10.29am BST
10.08am BST10.08am BST
10:0810:08
The controversy over the UK’s work - or lack thereof - to process and resettle refugees is the important subtext to today’s evacuation of the Calais migrant camp. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said:The controversy over the UK’s work - or lack thereof - to process and resettle refugees is the important subtext to today’s evacuation of the Calais migrant camp. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said:
The treatment of the refugees in Calais is disgraceful. The refugees should have been processed and checked before any dispersal and destruction of the camp.The treatment of the refugees in Calais is disgraceful. The refugees should have been processed and checked before any dispersal and destruction of the camp.
It seems certain that people who have a right to refugee status, or asylum, in either France or in this country, will be denied. Children will now be even more vulnerable to people traffickers, or worse.It seems certain that people who have a right to refugee status, or asylum, in either France or in this country, will be denied. Children will now be even more vulnerable to people traffickers, or worse.
The British government has failed in its duties, foot-dragging through the whole process. It should be protecting people who have a right to come here, not colluding in this process.The British government has failed in its duties, foot-dragging through the whole process. It should be protecting people who have a right to come here, not colluding in this process.
10.01am BST10.01am BST
10:0110:01
Lisa O'CarrollLisa O'Carroll
Migrants get color coded wrist bands before heading up to warehouse at least a mile away t be processed. pic.twitter.com/KMLtI50Mm8Migrants get color coded wrist bands before heading up to warehouse at least a mile away t be processed. pic.twitter.com/KMLtI50Mm8
9.59am BST9.59am BST
09:5909:59
We have just published an opinion piece by a panel of four writers giving their verdict on the evacuation of the Calais camp. The most poignant comes from Hassan Akkad, a Syrian who fled his country in 2012 and spent two months living rough in Calais before arriving in Britain.We have just published an opinion piece by a panel of four writers giving their verdict on the evacuation of the Calais camp. The most poignant comes from Hassan Akkad, a Syrian who fled his country in 2012 and spent two months living rough in Calais before arriving in Britain.
I spent two months in Calais before I arrived in the UK, and now I have come back, as a volunteer and a documentary-maker. No one should have to live like this. Now the autumn is here it is raining frequently and there are no proper shelters, so it’s a mud bath. But if they are going to demolish this place there needs to be another option for people.I spent two months in Calais before I arrived in the UK, and now I have come back, as a volunteer and a documentary-maker. No one should have to live like this. Now the autumn is here it is raining frequently and there are no proper shelters, so it’s a mud bath. But if they are going to demolish this place there needs to be another option for people.
There are about 10,000 people living in Calais right now. No one knows what is going to happen to them when the camp closes. These are people who have already fled their homes, and now they are living with uncertainty again.There are about 10,000 people living in Calais right now. No one knows what is going to happen to them when the camp closes. These are people who have already fled their homes, and now they are living with uncertainty again.
It is thought that about 1,000 of the people in “the jungle” are children. I would say 25% of people here have already claimed asylum in France, but have not been given anywhere to go. The rest still want to go to the UK. So if the government tries to bus them to other parts of France and detention centres, they won’t want to go.It is thought that about 1,000 of the people in “the jungle” are children. I would say 25% of people here have already claimed asylum in France, but have not been given anywhere to go. The rest still want to go to the UK. So if the government tries to bus them to other parts of France and detention centres, they won’t want to go.
I think some people will set up smaller camps, like in Dunkirk. But this will make it harder for charities to help them. People hate “the jungle”; no one could call it home – but closing it will just make things worse.I think some people will set up smaller camps, like in Dunkirk. But this will make it harder for charities to help them. People hate “the jungle”; no one could call it home – but closing it will just make things worse.
UpdatedUpdated
at 10.01am BSTat 10.01am BST
9.56am BST9.56am BST
09:5609:56
Angelique ChrisafisAngelique Chrisafis
Angelique Chrisafis has sent a fresh dispatch from Calais, where she has been spending the morning watching the evacuation.Angelique Chrisafis has sent a fresh dispatch from Calais, where she has been spending the morning watching the evacuation.
Inside the camp, as scores of men left carrying bags of blankets, some still stood by tents working out what to do in the next few days. Aid groups estimated that around 2,000 people had left the camp of their own accord in recent weeks and that squats would spring up in the Calais area as some refugees and people still hoped there was a way to make it to Britain.Inside the camp, as scores of men left carrying bags of blankets, some still stood by tents working out what to do in the next few days. Aid groups estimated that around 2,000 people had left the camp of their own accord in recent weeks and that squats would spring up in the Calais area as some refugees and people still hoped there was a way to make it to Britain.
Awad, 31, a Sudanese refugee, was waiting to be processed and get on one of the first buses to a reception centre in France. He said: ‘I love the uk but the uk doesn’t want refugees.’Awad, 31, a Sudanese refugee, was waiting to be processed and get on one of the first buses to a reception centre in France. He said: ‘I love the uk but the uk doesn’t want refugees.’
He felt learning French might be hard but he was relieved to be claiming asylum in France and leaving the Calais camp after six months there. ‘I feel good about leaving the jungle. I don’t know what will happen or where I will be sent today. But if I can choose I might choose the south. I’ve heard it’s warmer there.’He felt learning French might be hard but he was relieved to be claiming asylum in France and leaving the Calais camp after six months there. ‘I feel good about leaving the jungle. I don’t know what will happen or where I will be sent today. But if I can choose I might choose the south. I’ve heard it’s warmer there.’
All he had seen of France were the views from trains as he travelled up from Italy months before. ‘I hope to start a new life that is better than Calais,’ he said.All he had seen of France were the views from trains as he travelled up from Italy months before. ‘I hope to start a new life that is better than Calais,’ he said.
9.52am BST
09:52
Updated
at 9.52am BST
9.36am BST
09:36
Our first news wrap of the morning has been published. Here’s a flavour:
Queues of people dragging their few possessions in donated holdalls had begun forming in the dark pre-dawn outside a warehouse where processing was taking place.
As the gates opened people surged towards the warehouse, with no idea where they were to be transported to, but having been warned they must leave the camp or risk arrest and deportation.
The clear-out operation began in a peaceful and orderly fashion, in contrast to scenes at the weekend when there were violent clashes, with camp residents throwing stones at French riot police who retaliated with teargas.
Police vans and fire engines were positioned on the perimeter of the camp as those being processed were herded into the warehouse before being put on one of the white buses taking them to centres across France.
Updated
at 9.42am BST
9.33am BST
09:33
Are you in Calais or affected by events in the camp?
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9.16am BST
09:16
The evacuation of the Calais camp is continuing apace, according to my colleague Lisa O’Carroll, who is at the scene. She has just sent this tweet:
Ten buses have already left processing centre. People queuing since 5am. Migrants being taken to Paris, Lyons and Marseilles I was told pic.twitter.com/ubeccJj72K
9.15am BST
09:15
Home Office 'committed to safeguarding Calais children'
The Home Office has responded to fears that hundreds of children could be lost in the chaos of the Calais camp demolition today. As the Guardian reported last night, campaigners have warned that children who are undocumented and have not made it to the UK by Monday morning will be swept up in the “herding” of adult migrants onto coaches to be bussed elsewhere in France.
Robert Goodwill, the immigration minister, said:
We are absolutely committed to safeguarding and protecting children in Calais and have already transferred a considerable number of unaccompanied minors to the UK so far this year.
We are working closely with our French partners and the immediate priority is to ensure those who remain in the camp are provided with secure accommodation during the clearance operation. UK officials will continue to identify those eligible to come to Britain.
Our focus is, and will continue to be, transferring all eligible minors to the UK as soon as possible and ensuring they arrive safely. This must be done through an agreed and proper process and with the agreement of the French.
In the past week, about 200 children have been brought to safety in the UK, approximately 15% of the total number in the Calais camp, according to a Citizens UK estimate. Another 24 refugee children from Calais arrived in Britain on Sunday afternoon. They follow 54 unaccompanied minors, mostly girls from Eritrea, who were the first to be brought to the UK on Saturday night under the Dubs amendment, the government pledge to help unaccompanied children announced to parliament in the summer.
Updated
at 9.22am BST
9.04am BST
09:04
These two short Twitter videos from a French photographer covering the Calais camp evacuation show that the queueing for reprocessing seems to be taking place in an orderly fashion.
Le hangar par où les #Migrants transiteront avant leur évacuation de la #Jungle de #Calais pic.twitter.com/yhkEAk7GAr
Top départ de l'évacuation de la #Jungle de #Calais pic.twitter.com/qyztV3v90l
As previous posts have indicated, there is a significant constituency among camp residents who are happy to leave. Aziz, 27, from Darfur, Sudan, who has spent the last four months sleeping rough, told PA:
I don’t like this place at all because I want to go to a city area. I’m feeling not worried, not happy at all. I never laugh, I never cry. Just nothing, but I want to go from this place.
Aziz said he would claim asylum in France and is hoping to go to the west of the country. Speaking of his home, he said:
In Sudan there is insecurity, there is war, there is a terrible situation, discrimination ... it is not possible to stay.
8.57am BST
08:57
Children are at risk from traffickers - Yvette Cooper
Peter Walker
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the chief executive of the port of Calais, Jean-Marc Puissesseau, said he was “very, very happy” that the camp was finally being cleared, Peter Walker reports.
“For two years we have been living in constant stress, with a lot of attacks on the highways to try to slow down the traffic for the migrants to get into the lorries,” he said. “Really, it’s a big day – we are very happy.”
But Puissesseau also argued that Calais needed “months and months” of a heavy police presence to stop a new camp forming, or else “it’s a waste of time what we are doing today”.
Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP who chairs the home affairs select committee, told the programme she welcomed the clearance but said the UK and France should have done more work to assist young refugees in the camp.
“There are still hundreds of children and teenagers stuck in the camp and the French authorities have not put in place proper alternatives of places for the children to go that are safe. That’s why it’s right Britain should be doing its bit as well.”
She added: “There has to be a plan between both France and Britain to help the children and teenagers right now. I really worry that Britain left this far, far too late to do its bit in terms of helping the children and teenagers. But the French authorities have also continually failed to provide that support.”
Cooper warned that without proper plans in place, young camp residents could be placed at risk: “That’s what’s really worrying. Once the clearances start, we know that there is a significant risk that many of those children and young people disappear. That is what happened last time when part of the camp was closed without a plan for the children and teenagers.
“And the consequence is they slip into the arms of the smuggler gangs, the traffickers. Just at the point at which they might have been able to be reunited with their family, then they are lost.”
8.54am BST
08:54
Lisa O'Carroll
My Guardian colleague Lisa O’Carroll has been talking to some of the people getting ready to leave Calais for resettlement elsewhere in France. She says the atmosphere among them is a mixture of relief, resignation and, in some cases, cheer.
Habib, a business graduate from Afghanistan, said that all his family were in the UK, and that “human rights were violated” in the Calais camp. He told Lisa:
I am an educated person, why would I want to be in this camp? But I am. All my family are in the UK. Under the Dublin agreement children can go and join their family but I can’t. That is injustice. Children I understand are helpless, but I am helpless too. My family are just a few hundred kilometres away and now I am being taken hundreds of kilometres in the other direction.
Habib pointed to a scar on his wrist which he said was broken by people smugglers because he had asked for a drink of water, and he described how he had been beaten by the police when he tried to jump on a lorry.
Most of those volunteering to leave appear to be from Sudan, Eritrea and Afghanistan. Many of them seemed glad to be leaving. A group of Sudanese wandering to the processing centre at dawn cheered loudly “goodbye jungle”.
Two Sudanese took their place in the queue with their bicycles. Ahmed, 26, had been in the camp for seven months while Assam from Darfur had been there for six. “The jungle [is] no good, [it’s] dirty, there are fights,” said Assam.
Ahmed, 16, from Somalia, said: “[In] the jungle you feel like an animal.”
Bilal from Afghanistan, an English teacher who fled the Taliban, said the camp was “bad, bad”
Updated
at 10.41am BST
8.41am BST
08:41
First coach is headed for Burgundy
The first coach load of Calais camp evacuees left at about 8.45am (6.45am GMT), taking around 50 Sudanese to the Burgundy region of east central France, Agence France-Presse reports.
Abbas, 25, from Sudan, who was bundled up in a woolly hat and coat against the cold, told the agency: “I feel very happy, I’ve had enough of the Jungle. There are a lot of people who don’t want to leave. There might be problems later. That’s why I came out first.”
Bashir, 25, also from Sudan, began queueing at 4:00 am (0200 GMT), four hours before the hangar serving as a bus station opened. “Anywhere in France would be better than the Jungle”, he said.
However, hours before the evacuation began some migrants were still clinging to hopes of a new life across the Channel. Karhazi, a young Afghan, one of many of camp residents with contacts in Britain, said: “They’ll have to force us to leave. We want to go to Britain.”
A Syrian man named Sam who spent 13 months in the Jungle told AFP he had fled the camp at the weekend to another site about 12 kilometres (seven miles) away where he said “dozens” of migrants were hiding out to avoid being moved.
French authorities have said those who agree to be moved can apply for asylum in France.
8.35am BST
08:35
Calais camp will return, says charity boss
Camps housing migrants around Calais are likely to re-emerge, despite today’s demolition of the structures currently in place, the British founder of a Calais refugee crisis charity has told the Press Association.
Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, who has drawn parallels between the treatment of migrants in France with that of persecuted Jews in Nazi Germany, said:
I think people will still come. With refugees, deterrents don’t matter because a refugee by definition is fleeing something. In February, they demolished over half of the camp and yet here we, are seven months later, with a camp bigger than it’s ever been.
[Migrants] don’t have a lot of options or a lot of information. A lot of them are just kids. Even those who are 19, 20, 21 years old, they are still very young.
We’ve a lot from Afghanistan, which is fragmented and is a society that has completely broken down. The people from there don’t trust anybody and the children have behavioural problems because they are so accustomed to violence and to losing family and friends.
They are not coming here because they have a choice, they are coming here because they have no choice. A lot of the kids in particular don’t know what to do. When you ask them, they look at you blankly.