- Title: Despite demolition, many migrants vow to stay in Calais' "Jungle"
- Date: 25th October 2016
- Summary: ALLEY IN CAMP MIGRANTS CLAPPING AND SINGING
- Embargoed: 9th November 2016 19:49
- Keywords: France migrants Calais Europe Britain jungle
- Location: CALAIS, FRANCE
- City: CALAIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA00255I9JD3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: As workers began to tear down Calais' "Jungle" camp, many migrants vowed to stay on Tuesday (October 25), despite threats being detained by the authorities.
Workers moved in to dismantle the makeshift cabins abandoned by some 4,000 migrants who have already left the slum on France's northern coast.
But some like Sudanese migrant Abdelaziz Ahmen are vowing to stay despite a publicity campaign mounted to persuade the residents to board buses to 450 centres scattered across France.
"We don't know what's happening tomorrow, we stay here. We stay here, we have to go to the U.K.," he said.
The government had vowed to dismantle the camp which housed thousands of people fleeing troubled parts of the Middle East and Africa, but locals remain sceptical about their ability to dissuade newcomers from arriving in the town, tantalisingly close to the British coast.
"I can't see what solution they could find next week when for the last three years we've been trying to apply one, the migrants have been arriving and they're still arriving today. We still have them arriving in Calais today. So I think to say that there will no longer be a camp for migrants in Calais is a lie and as a result what I'm calling for after this long awaited action of demolishing it, is that they give us guarantees, and what's the President of the Republique's plan to "prevent" in his own words, these camps and the arrival of the migrants in Calais," the town's mayor Natacha Bouchart.
Regional prefect Fabienne Buccio said that 4,014 people had been taken in since the start of the evacuation process on Monday (October 24). - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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