Migrants flee bulldozers and tear gas at Calais “Jungle”

Submitted by Matthew on 2 March, 2016 - 12:33 Author: Phil Grimm

French authorities have set about dismantling a large section of the “Jungle” refugee camp in Calais.

Demolition teams, protected by French riot police to disperse protesters, have been forcefully destroying hundreds of temporary shelters. Migrants and solidarity activists protested in the lead-up to the bulldozers moving in, and after, and were met with repression from riot police who fired tear gas and used a water cannon.

The camp is home to 651 children, of whom 423 are unaccompanied. It is unclear what accommodation and facilities will be made available to them. Video footage taken by solidarity activists from the UK showed children running from tear gas as the clearance began in the early hours of the morning on Monday 29 February. Last week, French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve had spoken of a “humanitarian” operation. Video footage from inside the camp showed residents running away from clouds of tear gas, police surrounding the make-shift school, and shelters set on fire and bulldozed with migrants’ belongings inside.

Calais authorities are attempting to force camp residents into shipping containers on another part of the site. They have also been offered places in 100 reception centres around France. However, charities say the real population of the camp section being dismantled is much higher than the figure claimed by the local authorities. The fear is that the disparity between the amount of alternative accommodation provided and the number of people displaced will be used to force refugees to abandon their hope of reaching Britain.

Local charities and aid organisations are also outraged that many of the improvements they managed to make to the terrible living conditions in the camp will now be squandered. They also say that they have repeatedly been blocked from going to the camp by authorities. On the morning of the dismantling of the southern sector of the camp, Good Chance, a theatre group which works in the camp, said police were preventing volunteers from entering the camp. The dismantling also represents the violent destruction of what little the refugees had in the way of a home. A solidarity demonstration organised by Calais Migrant Solidarity took place outside the Institut Francais in London on 1 March.

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