France starts evacuation of refugees from notorious camp

French authorities have started the evacuation of refugees from the notorious Calais camp amid simmering tensions between police and residents of the slum-like facility known as “The Jungle.”

Refugee men and women, carrying suitcases and bundles of possessions, started arriving on Monday at the reception points, where they will be put on buses and transported for relocation to other centers across the country, AFP reported.

More than 1,200 police and officials were deployed in the northern port city to ensure calm in what Paris calls a “humanitarian,” during which some 6,000 to 8,000 refugees, more than 1,200 of them children, would be sent out.

Paris plans to completely close the camp by December.

“Everybody living in the Calais jungle will have to leave in order to be sheltered in one of the French reception and counseling centers” said a letter distributed among the refugees.

However, refugees at Calais, who live in appalling conditions in tents and temporary shelters, say they want to stay at the camp until they can find a way to continue their journey to Britain.

Many of them are reluctant to register as refugees in France as their preferred destination is the UK.

From the camp, located around the Channel Tunnel, the undersea passage into the UK, the refugees stow away on trucks heading for the United Kingdom.

“I try to stay in England but I don’t have money to go in England or to stay in France,” said a Sudanese refugee. “I think it is so hard for me, it is not easy ...Only God can help me right now.”

A volunteer teacher at a school in the camp said the refugees are worried because they do not know where they will be sent.

SS