Demolitions continue in Calais 'Jungle' for third day

Demolitions were taking place for a third day in the Calais "Jungle" as French authorities attempted to dismantle the refugee and migrant camp that had become a fixture of the port town.

Dozens of riot police arrived in around 30 vehicles on Wednesday to continue the forced eviction of as many as 3,500 migrants of Sudanese, Iranian, Syrian, Afghan and other origins.

Wide stretches of land in the camp now lie empty following the clearances by bulldozers on Monday and Tuesday.

Blink News talks to Syed Bokhai, founder of activist group London 2 Calais.

Numerous volunteers have travelled to the camp to assist the refugees and help prevent evictions.

"The refugees have asked us to help out of solidarity," said Rowan McAllan, a British woman who described herself as an "independent volunteer".

"These people have lost everything and come halfway across the world. They've managed to scrape together a very humble little abode in these conditions and now that's being taken from them," she told AFP.

Tear gas and water cannons were used on Tuesday to disperse inhabitants, some of whom set fire to their dwellings in protest. Others climbed on top of their homes to prevent their destruction by bulldozers.

Fabienne Buccio, the prefect of the Calais area responsible for the camp closure, told the Independent that the camp removal was only the tip of the iceberg.

“The Calais crisis cannot be solved in Calais," she said. "It can only end completely when the problems which create these great flows of mass migration are resolved. But since the autumn, we have had a clear plan, balancing the need for greater security and the need for humanity. And it is beginning to succeed.”

She also criticised foreign activists, particularly the pro-migration group No Borders, claiming one of them had broken the hand of a police officer.

Tear gas fired by riot police in camp:

“They are young people who are driven by an anarchist ideology of hatred of all laws and frontiers,” she said. “They have no real concern for the suffering of the migrants. They manipulate them and they mislead them. They harass the social workers we send to canvass them about staying in France.”

A spokesman for the prefect said that 43 people had left the camp on coaches to accommodation centres in Bordeaux and Montpellier.

A French court ruled last Thursday that the living spaces could be destroyed but not common spaces like mosques, schools and a library.

Le Monde reported Judge Valerie Quemener as saying the eviction was "carefully arranged and meets a real need”.

The current Calais Jungle has existed in the port town since around 2009 and has long housed refugees and migrants from Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and elsewhere.

But mounting frustration among the local French populace and the national rise of the far-right National Front has increased pressure for the camp to be dismantled.

The evacuees from the camp have been given a number of options by the French authorities - move into heated container accommodation in the north of the camp, move to similar accommodation elsewhere in the country or claim asylum.

Many residents of the camp have been unwilling to claim asylum, preferring to travel on to the UK either due to having family members there or because of its perceived better job prospects and better social tolerance than France.