- Title: Minors spend another night sleeping in makeshift school in Calais "Jungle"
- Date: 28th October 2016
- Summary: CALAIS, FRANCE (OCTOBER 28, 2016) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SMOKE RISING BEHIND MAKESHIFT SCHOOL IN THE "JUNGLE" MIGRANT SITTING AND SMOKING IN FOREGROUND / AID WORKERS AND MIGRANTS PLAYING FOOTBALL IN BACKGROUND MIGRANT RINSING MOUTH SIGN READING (French): "SCHOOL" / SUNRISE IN BACKGROUND MIGRANTS / SUN RISING (SOUNDBITE) (English) CARE FOR CALAIS VOLUNTEER, GLORIA MICALLEF, SAYING: "This is the second night that these kids are sleeping in the school. Yesterday none of the kids got registered and the police were really, really disorganised. Yesterday they shuttled the kids from the containers to the registration centre and back and forth. They ended up kettling (confining) the kids. The kids were really scared of that." DISCARDED LOAF OF BREAD VARIOUS OF MIGRANT STANDING AND WAITING VARIOUS OF MIGRANT BRUSHING TEETH (SOUNDBITE) (English) CARE FOR CALAIS VOLUNTEER, GLORIA MICALLEF, SAYING: "The authorities have not offered a solution. I mean, if it was not for us where would these kids be sleeping? In the Jungle? It's really unsafe. There was a massive fire by the bridge yesterday. The jungle was never a place for kids. Never. Even when it was okay-ish and it's definitely not a safe place for kids now." VARIOUS OF MIGRANT PUTTING WOOLY HAT ON, SUN SHINING BEHIND MIGRANTS WALKING PAST SIGN READING (French): "SCHOOL"
- Embargoed: 12th November 2016 09:49
- Keywords: France Calais Jungle minors school refugees migrants aid workers
- Location: CALAIS, FRANCE
- City: CALAIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA00155X5VLZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Aid workers criticised French authorities on Friday (October 28), after unaccompanied minors and other migrants spent a second night sleeping in a makeshift school in the ruins of the "Jungle" migrant camp in Calais.
Gloria Micallef, a volunteer for Care for Calais, a charity operating in the camp, said that some children had spent two nights sleeping in the school and said that police had been slow to register unaccompanied children sleeping rough at the site.
"The police were really disorganised. Yesterday they shuttled the kids from the containers to the registration centre and back and forth," Micallef said, adding that police ended up confining them in one area. "The kids were really scared of that," she added.
France and Great Britain have continued to bicker following media reports of unsupervised children sleeping rough around the port town since the clearance operation was launched, even though some 1,451 minors have been housed separately near the camp.
According to NGO Utopia 56, 120 people - including 100 minors - were sleeping in and around the school overnight. On Friday morning smoke could be seen billowing from the ruins of the camp.
"The authorities have not offered a solution. I mean, if It was not for us where would these kids be sleeping? In the Jungle? It's really unsafe. There was a massive fire by the bridge yesterday. The jungle was never a place for kids," Micallef said.
Until this week, thousands of migrants had camped near Calais in the hope of making the short journey across the sea to Britain by leaping on trucks and trains or walking through the Channel tunnel.
Serge Szarzynski, a local official involved with the camp eviction told a Reuters reporter that the minors will be moved to a reception centre later on Friday.
"They will then be an instruction phase, the diagnosis, to establish whether they have family in Britain," he said.
France says Britain has accepted 274 children from among the evicted migrants. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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