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France Begins to Clear ‘Jungle’ Migrant Camp Outside Calais France Clears ‘Jungle’ Camp at Calais, Dispersing Thousands of Migrants
(about 5 hours later)
CALAIS, France — The French government began its long-awaited clearing of the sprawling migrant camp outside the city of Calais on Monday morning, the start of its effort to once and for all dismantle an eyesore that has become an emblem of the country’s — and Europe’s — struggle to get a handle on the migration crisis. CALAIS, France — The migrants, mostly young men from Africa or Afghanistan, strode out of the squalid camp at a rapid pace, not looking behind them. Hundreds of them lined up in the cold for buses to take them to temporary housing all over France, as the government set in motion its plan to clear the sprawling migrant camp known as the “Jungle” once and for all.
Lines of migrants stretched for a mile in the cold along the routes leading out of the “Jungle,” as the camp is known, to be processed in a giant hangar. Buses waited along a side road to take them to dozens of reception centers scattered throughout France. Each migrant will have to choose between two regions, except for the island of Corsica and the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris. For migrants all over Europe, Calais is the hoped-for staging point for Britain’s presumed jobs-and-wealth Eldorado. For France’s government, the Jungle has developed into a political and humanitarian disaster. But until this week, it had largely ignored the camp, hoping it would go away and leaving the migrants’ care mostly in the hands of benevolent associations. That neglect was no longer possible.
Sixty buses, each carrying 50 migrants, were scheduled to depart the camp today; 45 tomorrow; and 40 on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the demolition of the camp is scheduled to begin. About 1,250 French police officers were assembled at the camp. The authorities are concerned about the possibility of clashes with militant activists, though not with migrants. On Monday, streams of migrants from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan and other conflict-torn countries trucked down the camp’s trash-filled, muddy lanes in small groups, pushing or dragging donated suitcases, or toting knapsacks front and back. One Afghan banged a drum, another carried a giant cricket bat, a third a guitar.
Most of the migrants appeared to be cooperating with the orders delivered by officials over the last few weeks in visits throughout the camp. Their message: The camp will be destroyed, the migrants must go, and the authorities will organize their departure. Some had suitcases on their heads; others simply walked out of the camp empty-handed, bundled up against the cold. Hundreds of journalists watched the operation.
The camp has been housing anywhere from 6,000 (officials’ estimates) to 8,000 people (the estimates of charities). The squalid camp, growing and festering for over a year, has become a symbol of Europe’s faltering efforts to handle its migration crisis. At its recent peak, up to 10,000 lived there in shivering misery, and as many as 100 arrived each day after arduous journeys by foot, boat, truck and clandestine train rides across continents and seas. Before Monday’s operation, the population was 6,000 to 8,000.
The Calais camp, supported by charities and activist groups, has grown over the past year and a half; for months, the government looked away, hoping the crowding at the camp would abate on its own. At its peak, 100 people a day were arriving, with as many as 30 a day coming in recent weeks. Judging by the crowds on Monday, many of the migrants appeared set to shed their dreams of Britain and were as anxious to be rid of the camp as the government was. On Tuesday, French officials plans to start demolishing and clearing its flimsy shacks, fields of tents and piles of trash spread over 1.5 square miles. The police said on Monday that they were expecting some resistance from activist groups, if not from the migrants themselves.
From countries like Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan, they had crossed vast distances — including, for many, a perilous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea — before making their way to this northern port city that overlooks the Strait of Dover, clinging to a hope that they might be able to leave for Britain by hitching a ride on one of the cargo trucks that use the Channel Tunnel, or even by walking through it. It was largely a false hope; only a few migrants made it through the tunnel, and several of them were arrested at the other end. “The Jungle is no good,” said Abdullah Umar, 24, who is from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region and hoped to apply for asylum in France. He was waiting in line on the road. “There are problems. Sometimes there’s fighting. And it’s cold.”
Two men from Sudan said in interviews on Monday that they hoped to stay in France. Mr. Umar added: “France is a good country. People from France gave me all these clothes.” He pointed to his new suitcase, which looked packed full.
“The Jungle is no good,” said Abdullah Umar, 24, who is from the Darfur region and hoped to apply for asylum. “There are problems. Sometimes there’s fighting. And it’s cold.” Hassan Jibril, 35, another Sudanese man, trying to keep himself warm in the Jungle’s warren of tents, said, “We are ready to leave.”
He added: “France is a good country. People from France gave me all these clothes.” He pointed to his new suitcase, which looked full. He was wearing flip-flops in the 40-degree chill and heating some pots over an outdoor fire. “It is a very bad situation here,” he said. “You see that?” he said, pointing to a trash-filled puddle next to his tent. “If you stay here, you can die.”
Ahmed Adam, 24, who is from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, and once worked at a plastics factory, said he had given up on getting to Britain. Awaiting the migrants was a complicated plan, fine-tuned by French officials since late summer, to disperse them in waves of bus journeys to dozens of towns and villages all over France. Sixty buses will take 50 migrants each on the first day, 45 buses on Tuesday and 40 on Wednesday; each migrant will be given a choice between two French regions. (The Île-de-France region, which includes Paris, and the island of Corsica are not among the options.)
“You have to make a solution, because now the border is closed,” he said. “Me, I will stay in France.” In the early-morning darkness on Monday, the buses were lined up for hundreds of yards along a side road in the barren industrial zone that is home to the Jungle. Some of the towns and villages hosting these 451 reception centers — abandoned barracks, hospitals, disused government vacation camps — have been demonstrating against their arrival in recent weeks; but the migrants do not know that.
He said he had spent a “difficult” two months in the camp. “France is safety,” he said. “I came across the sea. It is very dangerous.” The French government, anxious to deflect criticism from charities over the destruction of the Jungle, calls its plan a “humanitarian intervention,” insisting that it is moving forward for the migrants’ own good.
Most of the shack shops and restaurants that had been erected over the past year and a half appeared to have been abandoned and were in a state of ruin. On Sunday night, vendors had all their wares out on the central path of the camp — toothpicks, dishwashing liquid, running shoes, Afghan flags — holding, in essence, a fire sale. Children yelled, in English, “Jungle is finished!” “The immense majority of migrants present at Calais are eligible for international protection,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement. It described their sojourn in the reception centers as a “respite” allowing them to “serenely envisage a request for asylum in France.” Some, however, will not be granted asylum and will be expelled.
The migrants will be sent to towns large and small, and given a time to apply for asylum. Some will be granted it; some will be rejected and deported. The government has already expelled hundreds. At the end of the line on Monday, the migrants jostled to get into a giant concrete hangar where officials were processing them inside four big blue tents — one for adults, one for families, one for minors and one for the “vulnerable” — leading to six yellow tents, one for each destination region. Outside, the migrants pushed against a line of wary-looking police officers, more than 1,000 of them, sent in by the government.
Crowds of teenagers and children, processed separately from the adults, bore out the charities’ contention, made repeatedly in recent weeks, that the camp has been home to over 1,000 unaccompanied minors, many of them Afghans. Many of these minors have relatives in Britain and are eligible for asylum, the destination of choice. France has been locked in a fierce negotiation with the British government to take the children in; about 200 left in the last week.
The humanitarian groups pressed the government to delay the Jungle’s shutdown, but there was little sentimentality among its residents over its demise. On Sunday evening, the Jungle’s last night, crowds of young Eritrean men moved down its principal lane, shouting in English: “Jungle is finished! Jungle is over.”
Vendors engaged in frantic pre-destruction sales, laying out their wares — old running shoes, toothpicks, dishwashing liquid, Afghan flags — at bargain rates.
By Monday morning the beaten-up shacks housing the camp’s well-established restaurants, mostly Afghan, and shops were vacant, burned-out and broken-down shells.
“Where am I going now?” said an Afghan man, Nasir Maruf. He was disturbed by the Jungle’s imminent destruction. “I’m still waiting for the U.K.”
But the reality was that few migrants made it out of this northern port city that overlooks the Strait of Dover. Some clung to a hope that they might be able to leave for Britain by sneaking into one of the cargo trucks that use the Channel Tunnel, or even by walking through it. It was largely a false hope.
More representative was the resignation of a Sudanese man waiting in the line to be processed on Monday. “This Jungle, you have got to make a solution. Now, the border is closed,” said Ahmed Adam, 24, a plastics factory worker from Khartoum, referring to Britain’s determination to block the migrants.
“France is safety,” he said. “Khartoum is not safety.”