CALAIS, France: Migrants lugging their meager belongings boarded buses Monday taking them from the Calais “Jungle” under a French plan to raze the notorious camp that has become a symbol of Europe’s refugee crisis.
“Bye Bye, Jungle!” a group of migrants shouted as they hauled luggage through the muddy lanes of the shantytown where thousands from Africa and the Middle East had holed up, desperate to sneak into Britain.
Around 1,200 police officers — some in riot gear — were on hand as scores of Sudanese and Eritrean men queued from dawn outside a hangar to be among the first to be put on coaches for shelters across France.
“We don’t know yet where we are going, but it will obviously be better than the Jungle, which was made for animals not humans,” said Wahid, a 23-year-old Afghan.
The first coach load carrying 50 Sudanese left at about 8:45 a.m. (0645 GMT), heading for the Burgundy region of east-central France.
By midday, several hundred people were standing in line and 16 buses were already on the road.
As the crowd swelled, police intervened to break up a scuffle and prevent a stampede but the operation was generally proceeding “in a calm and orderly manner,” according to Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
Demolition crews will on Tuesday move in to start tearing down the camp, one of the biggest in Europe where 6,000-8,000 people, among them an estimated 1,300 children, have been living for months.
Officials said they aimed to relocate up to 2,500 people on the first day and complete the operation by Wednesday evening.
Christian Salome, head of the Auberge des Migrants (Migrants’ Hostel), one of the Jungle’s leading charities, said that those who departed on Monday had been impatient to leave.
“I’m much more concerned about later in the week when the only ones remaining are those who do not want to leave, who still want to reach England,” he said, estimating their number at around 2,000.
On Sunday night, the police fired tear gas during sporadic skirmishes with migrants around the camp.
Riots erupted when the authorities razed the southern half of the settlement in March.
More than one million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa flooded into Europe last year, sowing divisions across the 28-nation bloc and fueling the rise of far-right parties, including France’s own National Front.
Located on wasteland next to the port of Calais, the four-square-kilometer (1.5-square-mile) Jungle has become a symbol of Europe’s failure to resolve the crisis.
It has also strained ties between France and Britain and angered locals in Calais, where police try nightly to repel migrants trying to climb onto trucks heading across the Channel.
As the evacuation got under way some migrants were still clinging to hopes of a new life across the Channel, believing their chances of finding a job and integrating there to be better.
New graffiti on the walls of Jungle shelters and shops reflected the fears of some at seeing Britain slip out of reach.
“I lost my hope,” read one tag. “Is this justice? No,” read another.
Karhazi, a young Afghan, sounded a defiant note: “They’ll have to force us to leave. We want to go to Britain.”
French authorities say those who agree to be relocated can apply for asylum in France. Those who resist face possible deportation.
Jean-Marc Puissesseau, chief executive of Calais port where migrants in January briefly occupied a ferry, told BBC radio he was “a very, very happy man.”
“It’s for us really the D-Day,” he said, hailing an end to the “constant stress” of drivers fearful of being ambushed by migrants. Dozens of migrants have been killed trying to jump onto trucks or trains entering the Channel Tunnel.
Puissesseau warned that new camps would sprout up around Calais unless police remained vigilant.
The migrants are being divided into families, single men, unaccompanied minors and other people considered vulnerable.
A total of 145 buses have been laid on over the three days to take adults and families to 451 shelters nationwide.
British officials have been racing to process unaccompanied child refugees seeking refuge across the water.
By Saturday, the number of minors given a one-way ticket to Britain under a fast-track process for children that began 10 days ago had reached 194, according to a French charity helping in the process.
Hundreds more have been interviewed and many are still waiting for a reply. They will be provisionally housed with other minors in containers in a part of the Jungle where families had been living.
Migrants stream out of Calais Jungle before demolition
Migrants stream out of Calais Jungle before demolition
Venezuela’s acting president calls for oil industry reforms to attract more foreign investment
- In her speech, Rodríguez said money earned from foreign oil sales would go into two funds: one dedicated to social services for workers and the public health care system, and another to economic development and infrastructure projects
CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez used her first state of the union address on Thursday to promote oil industry reforms that would attract foreign investment, an objective aggressively pushed by the Trump administration since it toppled the country’s longtime leader less than two weeks ago.
Rodríguez, who has been under pressure from the US to fall in line with its vision for the oil-rich nation, said sales of Venezuelan oil would go to bolster crisis-stricken health services, economic development and other infrastructure projects.
While she sharply criticized the Trump administration and said there was a “stain on our relations,” the former vice president also outlined a distinct vision for the future between the two historic adversaries, straying from her predecessors, who have long railed against American intervention in Venezuela.
“Let us not be afraid of diplomacy” with the US, said Rodriguez, who must now navigate competing pressures from the Trump administration and a government loyal to former President Nicolás Maduro.
The speech, which was broadcast on a delay in Venezuela, came one day after Rodríguez said her government would continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro in what she described as “a new political moment” since his ouster.
Trump on Thursday met at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose political party is widely considered to have won 2024 elections rejected by Maduro. But in endorsing Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, Trump has sidelined Machado.
In her speech, Rodríguez said money earned from foreign oil sales would go into two funds: one dedicated to social services for workers and the public health care system, and another to economic development and infrastructure projects.
Hospitals and other health care facilities across the country have long suffered. Patients are asked to provide practically all supplies needed for their care, from syringes to surgical screws. Economic turmoil, among other factors, has pushed millions of Venezuelans to migrate from the South American nation in recent years.
In moving forward, the acting president must walk a tightrope, balancing pressures from both Washington and top Venezuelan officials who hold sway over Venezuela’s security forces and strongly oppose the US Her recent public speeches reflect those tensions — vacillating from conciliatory calls for cooperation with the US, to defiant rants echoing the anti-imperialist rhetoric of her toppled predecessor.
American authorities have long railed against a government they describe as a “dictatorship,” while Venezuela’s government has built a powerful populist ethos sharply opposed to US meddling in its affairs.
For the foreseeable future, Rodríguez’s government has been effectively relieved of having to hold elections. That’s because when Venezuela’s high court granted Rodríguez presidential powers on an acting basis, it cited a provision of the constitution that allows the vice president to take over for a renewable period of 90 days.
Trump enlisted Rodríguez to help secure US control over Venezuela’s oil sales despite sanctioning her for human rights violations during his first term. To ensure she does his bidding, Trump threatened Rodríguez earlier this month with a “situation probably worse than Maduro.”
Maduro, who is being held in a Brooklyn jail, has pleaded not guilty to drug-trafficking charges.
Before Rodríguez’s speech on Thursday, a group of government supporters was allowed into the presidential palace, where they chanted for Maduro, who the government insists remains the country’s president. “Maduro, resist, the people are rising,” they shouted.
