A refugee camp in the French region of Calais is set to be dismantled Tuesday, with thousands of migrants being bused out to other areas in France. The Calais refugee camp, regularly referred to as “the Jungle,” has drawn plenty of controversy over the last year with around 7,000 migrants and refugees inhabiting the French coast with dreams of resettling in Britain.
On Monday, an estimated 1,300 migrants were bused away from the Calais camp, the BBC reported. A total of around 7,000 people inhabit the decrepit camp. Aid workers ferried between tents, informing remaining migrants that they could face arrest if they fail to vacate the premises.
“My dream is dead, the people you see here, they are broken,” Adil, a man from Sudan, told the BBC as he waited in line to board a bus for another area in France. “We can’t believe it’s over.”
The residents of Calais will be distributed between 450 centers in France, where 7,500 beds are being set up. From there they will be processed and will either claim asylum or face deportation.
Nonetheless, a few migrants who will refuse resettlement options in France are expected to put up offshoot camps around the Calais area, the Guardian reported.
In 2001 and 2002, France’s then-Interior Minister (and later President) Nicolas Sarkozy closed the Sangatte refugee camp. But a number of migrants and refugees continued to flock to the area and erect tents in attempts to cross the English channel and start a new life in Great Britain.
Many tried to board UK-bound lorries. Some tried to swim. In response, the UK has paid 2.2 million Euros ($2.4 million) to erect a Donald Trump-esque wall in France.
Many of the migrants or refugees have family in Britain and want to join them in a country they believe to have better employment opportunities than Europe. Others are English speakers and don’t speak a European language, the BBC reported.
Europe received over one million refugees last year, mostly from war-torn countries like Syria or Iraq. The E.U. made an agreement with Turkey to block refugees from crossing the sea or land borders into countries like Greece, but the agreement has been widely criticized by rights groups.
While the agreement has seen less refugees and migrants enter France from the Middle East, many Africans fleeing persecution in countries like Eritrea or the lawlessness of Somalia are still entering Europe and France in particular.
In Calais, tension has built between local police, the local community, and the residents of the camp. This animosity has sometimes manifested in protests. Over the weekend, police deployed tear gas against the Calais camp residents. Some migrants and refugees threw stones at the police. In the past, police have not always treated residents with proper respect, and there have been incidents of police abuse, drawing criticism from human rights advocates.
The dismantling of the camp could bring plenty of problems though. Around 1,300 children inhabit the camp and aid workers fear they could disappear into human trafficking circles if not properly accounted for.
“That’s what’s really worrying, because once the clearances start we know there is a significant risk that many of those children and young people just disappear,” Yvette Cooper, chair of the Commons home affairs committee, told BBC radio.