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Calais refugees queue to leave as demolition crews prepare to move in Calais camp scuffles break out as refugees queue to leave
(35 minutes later)
French authorities are hoping to begin the dismantling of the Calais refugee camp, as hundreds of migrants and refugees queued for a second day for buses taking them to accommodation centres across France. Scuffles have broken out on the second day of an attempt by French authorities to clear the Calais refugee camp, with at least one person removed on a stretcher as French riot police kettled hundreds of migrants and refugees as they queued for buses taking them to accommodation centres across the country.
“Bye bye, Jungle!” one group shouted as they hauled luggage through the muddy lanes of the camp, where thousands of mainly Afghans, Sudanese and Eritreans have been living. Police appeared to struggle as hundreds of children penned into a small area outside a processing centre became impatient and anxious to get to the front of the queue.
On Monday, 1,918 people left Calais on buses bound for 80 reception centres across France, according to the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve. Hundreds of people were forced to sit on the road outside the warehouse, where they are being processed. Volunteers arrived speaking Pashto to the mainly Afghan boys and young men at the front of the queue.
“We don’t know yet where we are going, but it will obviously be better than the Jungle, which was made for animals not humans,” said Wahid, a 23-year-old Afghan. Police armed with handguns, Tasers and gas canisters then formed a line and pushed the press back before pushing the children back. Calm was eventually restored after the small area allocated to the children was widened.
Police at one point intervened to break up a scuffle but Cazeneuve said the operation proceeded in a generally “calm and orderly manner”. Almost 2,000 refugees and migrants from the camp passed through official registration on Monday and were being transported by bus to regions across France. An estimated 8,000 remain to be processed, the French interior ministry said.
The camp’s hundreds of unaccompanied minors have been the main focus of charities’ concerns. In an eleventh-hour gesture, Britain has taken in nearly 200 teenagers over the past week, mostly children with relatives there, but the transfers were on hold on Monday. Hundreds more have been interviewed by British immigration officials and many are still awaiting a reply. Nearly 200 under-18s have arrived in the UK in recent days and hundreds more are expected to arrive, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, told parliament on Monday. However, a quarter of English councils have refused to take part in resettling refugees.
Four hundred children are being provisionally housed in shipping containers in a part of the camp where families had been living. The French government is “determined to stop people coming back to Calais”, the French ambassador to London, Sylvie Bermann, told Radio 4’s Today programme.
Cazeneuve said all unaccompanied minors “with proven family links in Great Britain” would eventually be transferred from the camp across the Channel. “We won’t let them come,” she said. “It has to be clear that Calais is a blind alley and you can’t come to this country.” Refugees who do turn up at the former site in the hope of reaching the UK will be transported to other parts of the country and “convinced to claim asylum in France”, she said.
The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said the UK was contributing up to £36m towards the operation to clear the camp, as well as to help reinforce Britain’s border controls in Calais. Authorities hope that demolition crews can move in later on Tuesday to start tearing down the camp, one of the biggest in Europe, where thousands of people have been living in dire conditions. The operation is set to continue until Wednesday.
On Tuesday, demolition crews will move in to start tearing down the camp, one of the biggest in Europe, where thousands of people have been living in dire conditions. The operation is set to continue until Wednesday. Christian Salome, the head of the Auberge des Migrants (migrants’ hostel) charity, told AFP the process was “working well because these are people who were waiting impatiently to leave”.
Christian Salome, the head of the Auberge des Migrants (migrants’ hostel) charity, said the process was “working well because these are people who were waiting impatiently to leave”.
“I’m much more concerned about later in the week when the only ones remaining are those who do not want to leave, who still want to reach England,” he said, estimating their number at about 2,000.“I’m much more concerned about later in the week when the only ones remaining are those who do not want to leave, who still want to reach England,” he said, estimating their number at about 2,000.