Demolition of Calais ‘Jungle’ camp continues

PARIS

Backed by scores of French riot police, on Tuesday demolition teams and bulldozers continued the forced clearing of the southern part of the "Jungle" camp in the northern port city of Calais amid tension and despair from refugees and activists.

The security presence was boosted on the second day after riot police clashed on Monday afternoon, and overnight with refugees and activists opposing the demolition. Police used teargas and water cannons to disperse the crowds as fires broke out around the camp.

Calais Solidarity, an NGO working in the camp, said two people were arrested on Tuesday morning for occupying the roofs of their houses.

“Some residents got thrown out of their tents by force. Police forcibly removed a pregnant woman from her house and beat her. There is a presence of PAF (border police), BAC (undercover police), and CRS (riot police),” Calis Solidarity said on its website.

Describing the scene from the camp on Tuesday, Joe Murphy, founder of the Good Chance Calais NGO, told BBC’s Victoria Live: “It is a very distressing scene today again. There are hundreds of police around, bulldozers… bulldozers which the French government promised not to use.”

“There are groups of people standing around the fire as it is really rainy and windy today. It is not a day to lose your home and it is a very distressing scene,” Murphy said.

The move comes after Lille's administrative court last week validated the French government's decision to demolish and evacuate the southern part of the camp.

A spokesman for the Pas-de-Calais prefect's office said at the time that “the order is applicable, except for common social areas [places of worship or schools],” and that it would be “soft”.

However, several nonprofits and NGOs protested the massive police presence in an area where more than 4,000 refugees - attracted by the nearby Channel tunnel terminal and the Calais port as a route to the U.K. - have been a constant, despite French attempts to disperse them.

“No volunteer access. People removed from houses. Police blocking entry. This is what they call a ‘soft demolition’,” the Good Chance Calais NGO tweeted on Monday.

“Police everywhere. This is the opposite of what the prefecture promised. Lies again. Soft demolition means hard,” it added.

The French government ordered the demolition of the camp, saying the move aimed at reducing the population of the camp to 2,000 people and that it would only affect 800-1,000 people, who would be moved into refitted shipping containers set up nearby.

But according to Calais Migrant Solidarity, a charity working in the Calais camp, “There are still more than 5,000 undocumented people. Many more are on their way".

The U.K.-based NGO Calais Action said the exact figure was 5,497, with around 3,450 people living in the southern part, including 300 unaccompanied children.

The presence of large numbers of refugees in the area has persisted since 1999 when the Red Cross Sangatte reception center became rapidly overcrowded and the “Jungle” was established in late 2014.