TLTP
\nCALAIS
\nA camp of 700 to 800 migrants in the French port city of Calais was dismantled by police on Tuesday in the biggest such operation since the sprawling \u201cJungle\u201d shanty town was broken up four years ago.
\nCalais continues to attract migrants from the Middle East and Africa who set up makeshift camps along the coast from where they hope to make the passage across the English Channel to Britain.
\nSince January 1, at least 1,317 migrants have been intercepted by French authorities as they tried to reach the UK, some by swimming across the busy waterway. Tuesday\u2019s operation started before sunrise and had removed some 200 people in the first two hours, according to local authorities. Twenty-one among them were arrested.
\n\u201cWe want to avoid a concentration and a new gathering point in Calais,\u201d Louis Le Franc, the government\u2019s top official for the northern Pas-de-Calais department, said at the scene.
\nAccording to Le Franc, it was the biggest dismantling of a Calais camp since the Jungle was cleared of some 9,000 migrants between 2015 and 2016.
\nAbout 150 of the evacuated migrants will be brought to reception centres in Pas-de-Calais, another 150 to other departments in northern France, and the remaining 500-odd to other regions of the country.
\nBy far the majority of the migrants are men, mainly from Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Iraq and Eritrea. \u201cIn my view, this is above all an operation to give people a safe haven. The migrants are living in this forested area in extremely difficult conditions,\u201d Le Franc said.
\n\u201cIt was important to get the migrants out before… the winter period,\u201d he added. Northern France has long been a magnet for people seeking to smuggle themselves to Britain in small boats or in one of the tens of thousands of trucks and cars that travel daily between the countries on ferries and trains.
\nThe month of August saw this year\u2019s first drowning of a migrant trying to exit France, when the body of a Sudanese teenager trying to reach Britain with a friend in an inflatable boat was discovered on a beach.
\nFrench authorities have vowed to avoid a repeat of the Jungle — which at one point held as many as 10,000 people — but camps have continued to spring up as migrants flee war and poverty at home to seek a better life in Europe.
\nRights groups have criticised police tactics, which include seizing migrants\u2019 tents and other belongings. In December 2018, France\u2019s human rights ombudsman said migrants in northern France have been subjected to \u201cunprecedented\u201d violations of their basic rights.
\nAs Tuesday\u2019s evacuation was under way, migrants queued for buses grouped by ethnicity or nationality, as tents, duvets, blankets, shoes and clothes were left behind in the undergrowth.
\n\u201cOur goal is also to fight actively against smugglers\u201d and \u201cthe exploitation of human misery,\u201d Le Franc said.
\nRights associations said the operation was pointless as Maya Konforti, of the Auberge des Migrants (Migrants\u2019 Hostel) group, said the evacuated foreigners would be back \u201cwithin days.\u201d
\n\u201cWe spend a lot of money to move dozens of people in buses… but it serves absolutely no purpose. It\u2019s messaging, nothing else,\u201d she said. The migrants know that few of them qualify for asylum in France, and believing that \u201cEngland is their last chance\u201d will continue trying to get there at all costs, Konforti said.
\nThe government estimates about 1,000 migrants currently live around Calais, while support groups say the number is closer to 1,500.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TLTP CALAIS A camp of 700 to 800 migrants in the French port city of Calais was dismantled by police on Tuesday in the biggest such operation since the sprawling \u201cJungle\u201d shanty town was broken up four years ago. Calais continues to attract migrants from the Middle East and Africa who set up makeshift camps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n