CALAIS // French authorities declared the refugee camp known as the “Jungle” empty on Wednesday after fires started by departing refugees accelerated plans to remove residents.
“There are no more migrants in the camp,” official Fabienne Buccio said at the camp near Calais. “Our mission has been fulfilled.”
Residents of the camp were still milling around the site after the announcement, but authorities said they would stop processing people by Wednesday evening local time.
Refugees have flocked to the Calais region for decades, but the Jungle grew as Europe’s migrant crisis expanded.
As the makeshift camp evolved into a massive slum supported by aid groups, France finally decided to shut it down.
Police began moving residents to reception centres around France – where they can seek asylum – on Monday and demolition of the camp began a day later.
Evacuation was accelerated on Wednesday after large portions of the camp went up in flames. Some of the departing refugees set shelters and tents alight before police moved in to relocate them.
Huge clouds of black smoke billowed over the sprawling camp, where between 6,000 and 8,000 people were living before the evacuations began.
The heat from the fires, which began in the early hours, caused gas canisters to explode.
A Syrian man was taken to hospital after suffering injuries to his ear drums after one such explosion.
“You have to leave,” an aid worker said to residents. “You have these gas canisters in your caravan, get them out.”
A volunteer’s SUV could be seen leaving the camp with more than 10 gas cylinders on a trailer.
Meanwhile, one aid group’s lorry burst into flames.
Firefighters delved into the camp’s deepest recesses, trying to prevent a conflagration from taking place.
But they did not manage to prevent the flames from ravaging the camp’s central thoroughfare, leaving skeleton-like hulks on either side of the road.
“Our tents were burning. Someone set fire to them, though I don’t know who,” said Siddiq, a 16-year-old boy, who was forced to sleep under a bridge at the camp’s entrance.
“I have seen many fires before but not like this.”
Another minor, a 17-year-old Afghan named Arman Khan, said he had lost everything he owned to the flames.
“Someone burnt our tents. Maybe they used petrol or something, I don’t know, but the fires spread fast. We had to run out in the middle of the night,” he said.
“I left all my things behind, I have nothing now.”
A local official downplayed the blazes at the camp, saying: “It’s a tradition among communities to set fire to their homes before leaving.”
Meanwhile, as the reality of the mass evacuation took hold, fearful refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Syria and Pakistan braced for a new reality. Some pledged to just keep moving.
“This jungle is no good,” said Muhammad Afridi, 20, from Pakistan. “We go to a new jungle.”
* Associated Press, Agence France-Presse
