Hundreds of Syrian children could be resettled in the UK in a matter of days as France prepares to demolish the refugee camp in Calais.

Aid agencies have been working with British and French officials to register all unaccompanied children who have links to the UK. The operation to register the children, and bring them safely to Britain, has become more urgent as the French government prepares to demolish the camp next week.

France to close Calais refugee camp and tells UK it must play its part Read more

The UK government has agreed to take in lone children with existing links to Britain and about 300 minors are expected to be brought into the country in the coming days. A Home Office spokesman said: “Work is continuing on both sides of the Channel to ensure this happens as a matter of urgency.”

He said the home secretary, Amber Rudd, had made it “crystal clear” to the French interior minister that she intended to “transfer as many minors as possible” who are eligible under the rules.

Although asylum seekers usually have to make a claim for protection in the first safe country they reach, the rules for children mean their claim can be transferred if they have family members living somewhere else.

Officials are working against the clock to complete the process as fears grow of a mass disappearance of children ahead of the planned eviction and demolition. There are also fears those children who are not eligible to seek asylum in Britain will be particularly vulnerable once the authorities move in and raze the camp.

With local councils set to absorb the pressures of the influx of unaccompanied children, the chairman of the Local Government Association’s asylum, refugee and migration task group, David Simmonds, said councils will “require long-term funding arrangements from government so that the commitment to support those children starting a new life in the UK is properly funded”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People gather inside the camp in Calais. Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images

Simmonds said taking on children who had been living in the squalor of the camp could put increased pressure on stretched local authority resources. “Those arriving from the Calais camp will require care and support packages directly from councils and their partners,” he said.

“For those children relocated with existing family living in the UK, councils will still want to be assured that arrangements put in place can meet the child’s needs and that they are safe and well. Many will have also experienced horrendous conditions within and since fleeing their country of origin, so councils will want to ensure they are able to settle into communities as quickly and easily as possible with ongoing support made available when they need it.”

The news of the arrival of child refugees comes as reports emerged of French police stripping people of their shoes and phones in an apparent move to keep them in the camp before their official eviction. According to a recording secured by the Independent, refugees who had ventured just outside the confines of camp, which has become known as “the Jungle”, were stopped by police. The French officers demanded their shoes and forced them to walk back into the camp.

A report published in the summer by the Bar Human Rights Committee revealed French authorities regularly took personal items, including phones, from the refugees in the camp.

Gráinne Mellon, co-author of the BHRC report, told the Independent: “We found evidence of what appeared to be fairly routine acts of violence in the camp, including shoes being removed and phones being confiscated, corroborated by a number of different sources. The confiscation of these items is a breach of criminal law and against all policing codes and ethics, but in addition to that and more worryingly it feeds into this sense in the camps that the residents don’t have any rights.” </s> The fate of children staying in the Jungle, a squalid camp where up to 10,000 people fleeing war or poverty in the Middle East and Africa have converged seeking ways to cross to Britain, has been a political problem for the British government.

Religious leaders, refugee rights campaign groups and opposition parties have accused the government of dragging its heels on helping to move unaccompanied children out of the camp, which France has said it will soon demolish.

The French and British interior ministers, Bernard Cazeneuve and Amber Rudd, agreed in talks on Oct. 10 to speed up the process of moving children eligible to go to Britain out of the Jungle.

Fourteen children, the first whose cases have been processed, arrived by bus in Croydon, south London, to be reunited with relatives already living in Britain. Faith leaders and aid workers were on hand to welcome and assist them.

"The camp at Calais is a desperate, dangerous, horrible place, nowhere any adult should be, let alone any child," said Bishop of Croydon Jonathan Clark.

"So this is a really good day to celebrate as some of those children begin to make their journeys to be reunited with their families," he told reporters outside a Croydon church.

It is not known exactly how many children will be brought to Britain. The British interior ministry has said 80 children had been accepted for transfer from France so far this year under EU family reunification rules known as the Dublin regulation.

The Red Cross estimates that 1,000 unaccompanied children are living in the Jungle, of whom 178 have been identified as having family ties to Britain. It has said some of these children have been held back by bureaucracy.

Separately from the Dublin process, Britain has sent out a team to work with the French authorities to identify children who can be brought to Britain under the terms of a change to British immigration law known as the Dubs amendment.

It states that Britain will take in "vulnerable unaccompanied child refugees" who arrived in the EU before March 20, even if they do not have relatives in Britain.

March 20 was date of an EU-Turkey deal aimed at limiting the flow of migrants into the bloc, which reached crisis levels in 2015. The Dubs amendment is named after the politician who proposed it, Alf Dubs, who came to Britain as a Jewish child refugee fleeing Nazi persecution. </s> Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has warned that the safety of up to 400 unaccompanied children stranded in the Calais refugee camp is being affected by “foot-dragging” by the government.

Speaking as 14 children from the camp were due to arrive in Britain, he said the “clock is ticking” for the remainder because of the impending dismantling of the site.

The children arriving on Monday are among about 100 to be resettled in the UK. They come from countries including Syria, Afghanistan and Kuwait’s stateless Bidoon community.

Lord Williams, who was speaking in Croydon where the children were due to be processed by the Home Office, said the youngsters were “extraordinarily vulnerable” in the “chaos of the camp and the chaos of the demolition”.

He called on the government to expedite the cases of those remaining at Calais, which he said could number 400. “I’m not sure why there is such foot-dragging,” Williams said at Croydon Minster. “The clock is ticking, the likelihood is the Calais camp will be demolished in the next 10 days.”

Commenting on the impending arrival of the children, actor Juliet Stevenson said: “Today is a proud moment for Britain. We did the right thing.”

Last week the home secretary, Amber Rudd, indicated that the UK would accept unaccompanied children with or without relatives in the UK.

After a two-hour meeting last Monday with her French counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve, she said the official effort would prioritise safeguarding children under 12.

But Williams said no process had yet been put in place to accept those children without relatives in the UK.

He said there was “a moral imperative” for the UK to accept those that did not have relatives already settled in the country.

“We’ve omitted to think what’s in their best interests and to consider whether we take more children,” he said.

Under EU laws, a child seeking asylum who has a parent or a sibling in another European country can be fast-tracked to join them in that country.

Earlier this year Alf Dubs forced the government to agree to give sanctuary to some unaccompanied child refugees who have no relatives in the UK.

Lord Dubs called for a “shared enterprise” between government and charitable organisations working to secure a future home for the children, many of whom have fled wars.

Stevenson, who is supporting Citizens UK’s Safe Passage programme, said: “The arrival of hundreds of vulnerable children from Calais to the UK in the coming days is in no small part due to the tireless campaigning of community leaders, the hard work of Citizens UK’s lawyers, and the Safe Passage team in Calais who have been working to safeguard children for over a year.” </s> A group of around 10 unaccompanied refugee children are expected to leave France for the the UK on Monday as part of the Home Office’s attempt to relocate children from the refugee camp in Calais before it is demolished.

The 10 children follow an advance party of five – four Syrians and one Afghan – who arrived over the weekend. According to French authorities they will be followed by a further group of around 10 on Tuesday, all of whom qualify for relocation under the Dublin Regulation because they have family living in the UK.

Local government officials in Calais told AFP there was “no deal for a larger-scale plan” for the UK to take more.

The Home Office said that after a meeting between the home secretary, Amber Rudd, and the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, it had sent a team to Calais to help identify children who qualified. Cazeneuve said he was asking “Britain to assume its moral duty”.

At least 187 children in Calais have been identified by the Red Cross as being eligible under the Dublin rules. However, the Home Office has been accused of dragging its feet over processing their cases. In the first nine months of 2016, just 140 children were brought to the UK under the Dublin rules, 80 of them from France.

The UK has also made a wider commitment to taking in unaccompanied migrant children under the Dubs amendment passed in the House of Lords this year.

The Home Office said it would send a second group of staff to France to help identify and prioritise children to be brought to the UK under the amendment.

It was originally expected that the amendment – which was introduced by Lord Dubs, who came to the UK from Nazi Germany as a child on the Kindertransport – would see around 3,000 children given a home in the UK. However, Rudd said last week that it would be a “good result” if the UK ended up taking around 300 unaccompanied children from the camp in Calais.

The Calais camp – a dirty and unsafe collection of makeshift shelters – is home to around 10,000 people, with official estimates suggesting there are between 600 and 900 unaccompanied minors. The French were originally planning to begin demolishing the camp as early as Tuesday, but the plans have been postponed for at least a week.

“As the home secretary told the House of Commons on Monday, our priority must be to ensure the safety and security of the children in the Calais camp,” said a Home Office spokesman.

“When she met the French interior minister she made it crystal clear that we intend to transfer as many minors as possible who qualify for transfer to the UK to claim asylum on the basis of close family in the UK under the Dublin Regulation, before the start of the clearance.

“In addition, children who are eligible to come to the UK under the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act 2016 must be looked after in safe facilities where their best interests are properly considered. Work is continuing on both sides of the Channel to ensure this happens as a matter of urgency.” </s> More than 50,000 people are calling on Home Secretary Amber Rudd to “respect the rights of young refugees” after the government ditched its scheme to accept children living alone in Europe. The government’s decision to scrap the Dubs Amendment scheme, which sought to relocate about 3,000 vulnerable child refugees in France, Italy and Greece, has sparked outrage from groups working with displaced minors. Three volunteers who met while working in the Calais ‘Jungle’ camp have launched a petition calling on Rudd to transfer the agreed number of children to safety in the UK. Just 350 displaced youngsters have arrived in the UK.

The petition describes the “failure” of the British and French governments to put in place adequate safeguards for children living in the camp before, during and after its demolition. The volunteers describe their shock at the “neglectful treatment” children had suffered “both in their day-to-day lives and in their dealings with the Home Office”. “Your plan to halt transfers of unaccompanied refugee children under the Dubs Amendment, after having accepted just 350 children, is shameful. When the Amendment was passed it was widely agreed that 3000 would be a ‘fair share’ for the U.K to take in. There are 21.3 million refugees worldwide, and over half of them are under 18. Clearly we can and must do more. “We are also deeply concerned about the children who have had their family reunification requests rejected without being given the reasons for their refusal. Despite telling unaccompanied children during the closure of the Calais ‘Jungle’ that their cases to come to the U.K. would be processed fairly, the government decided to work within a scheme based on the Dublin III Regulations, but which operated outside of them. As a result, hundreds of children who have had their claims denied by the Home Office have been given no reasons for their rejections and no way to appeal, despite the fact that they have family waiting in the U.K. “Because the legal pathways for reaching the United Kingdom are closing, children eligible under both schemes are running away from accommodation centres across France to sleep rough in Calais and Paris, where they are vulnerable to trafficking and freezing temperatures, with the hope of getting across in more dangerous ways.” Many people have listed a variety of reasons why they signed the petition. One person, who said his name was Professor Sir Richard Jolly, wrote: “As an evacuee during the Second World War, I have been following the Dubs Amendment closely. Please restore commitment to the Dubs Amendment - and the UK’s good name.” The petition calls on the government to transfer at least 3,000 children from European countries, such as Greece, Italy and France, “with due haste”.

The Dubs Amendment was closed last week, with the government announcing it had “reasonably” met the “intention and spirit” of the scheme. The scheme was named after the Labour peer, Lord Alf Dubs, who was rescued from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939 and brought to the UK under the ‘Kindertransport’. Lord Dubs said the government appeared to be breaching the “letter and spirit” of the law. Lord Dubs said: “It wasn’t long ago that I remember the Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary told me the Government was prepared to accept the amendment. “It was on the same day the then immigration minister told me the Government would accept the letter and the spirit of that amendment. “I believe in arbitrarily closing down the scheme without any good reason for doing so the Government is in breach of its own commitments.” Rudd suggested that another reason for the scheme ending was that the French authorities had urged her not to make the Dubs scheme open-ended as it encourages people to make the dangerous journey to Europe. Rudd said: “I am clear that when working with my French counterparts, they do not want us to indefinitely continue to accept children under the Dubs amendment because they specify and I agree with them that it acts as a draw, it acts as a pull, it encourages the people traffickers.” Unicef said that 30,000 children arrived in Greece and Italy last year and that thousands of them “alone and highly vulnerable”. </s> The Home Office is still refusing to make adequate provision to protect unaccompanied child refugees stranded in Calais ahead of the camp’s imminent demolition, according to court documents detailing fresh legal action against the UK government.

Although six children arrived in the UK on Saturday from the migrant camp, with 24 more due over the coming week, it has emerged that the Home Office has not provided detailed plans about how it and the French authorities intend to protect minors before, during and after demolition.

The camp – home to around 1,300 unaccompanied minors – is expected to be closed later this month, with charities warning that hundreds could go missing, many taken by traffickers. Aid groups believe the planned closure will lead to children disappearing before they are processed; as many as 600 minors inside the camp are eligible to come to Britain.

Although the home secretary Amber Rudd promised last week that as many children as possible with direct family links in Britain would be brought to the UK, it has also emerged that the Home Office has yet to produce any detailed operational plans setting out precisely how the children will be transferred.

Documents lodged in the high court on Friday criticise the government for failing to deliver an actual process to facilitate the transfer of child refugees under the Dublin regulation, effectively forcing charities and volunteers to do the government’s job by carrying out the necessary legal and logistical work. “There is no functioning state system and what system there is, is currently almost entirely dependent on private actors,” the documents state.

Legal papers also reveal that the cases of 111 children eligible to come to Britain have simply not been processed because of the lack of an effective system.

The legal action, brought by Citizens UK, a grassroots network of more than 350 groups, argues that the Home Office has repeatedly failed in its duty to help unaccompanied child refugees trapped in the Calais camp, pointing out a “longstanding failure by the defendant [Home Office] and the French authorities to identify and protect children”.

It says that failure to provide adequate support, information and safe accommodation means that children are at risk from traffickers and smugglers and that this will increase further once the camp is destroyed.

The high court judge, noting the urgency of the case because of the camp’s imminent demolition, has given the Home Office until Tuesday to respond to the claims it has neglected its “legal duties toward children” in the camp.

In a statement on Calais last week, Rudd said that the safety of child refugees was her “utmost priority”.

News of the court action drew support from campaigners exasperated at the UK government’s response to vulnerable unaccompanied minors.

Actor Vanessa Redgrave said: “I entirely support this legal action; to date the UK government has failed to provide protection for the children in Calais. We have to be certain that the children will not be treated with violence, before, during or after the demolition. Without this action through the courts I believe the children will suffer horribly.”

The bishop of Barking, Peter Hill, a spokesman for Citizens UK, said: “We should not, at this late stage, have to be taking legal action simply to ensure that an adequate plan has been put in place to safeguard the remaining children from going missing amid the impending chaos of the eviction.”

The Home Office said the home secretary had made it “crystal clear that we intend to transfer as many minors as possible, who are eligible under the Dublin Regulation, before the start of the clearance”. It added: “Work is continuing on both sides of the Channel to ensure this happens as a matter of urgency.” The Home Office has sent a team of officials to work alongside French counterparts in Calais to help with speeding up the transfer of children eligible to come to Britain.

A spokesman for the Calais prefecture said five children from Syria and one from Afghanistan had come to the UK. “From Monday, a dozen more minors will follow, then on Tuesday, a dozen more,” he added. </s> CALAIS, France (AP) — Inside the Kids Cafe, a ramshackle refuge in a sprawling migrant slum in Calais, a mobile phone rings.

Afghan teenager Wasaal takes the call. A friend of his has managed to hide inside a truck and hopes he will soon be on the other side of the English Channel.

“The problem is that he does not have GPS on his mobile. He does not know if the truck is moving in the right direction,” the 14-year-old said.

In fact, few in this muddy, violent camp in the northern French city know where they are going, but dreams abound of a life in Britain, just 21 miles (33 kilometers) across the sea.

The French government has announced plans to shut down the camp that has become a demoralizing symbol of Europe’s migrant crisis by the end of the year. That means 6,000 to 10,000 migrants will need to be relocated, including up to 1,300 minors, according to different estimates from charities operating in the camp.

Many refugee children in Calais claim to have family ties in the U.K. and don’t even consider building their future in France. Jonny Willis, a volunteer from the French refugee and youth service, says the camp’s appalling living conditions and poor hygiene have been a strong deterrent.

“They went through a terrible experience here,” said Willis. “They have been treated so badly by police. This camp lacks basic services, in addition there is no security.”

Wasaal himself has stopped trying to sneak onto trucks to Britain. Instead he’s had his fingerprints taken as part of his request for asylum.

“I tried it more than 10 times over the past seven months,” he said. “But I’m not doing it anymore. I’m in the process of being reunited with my uncle and cousins. I don’t how long it will take, it’s for the Home Office to decide.”

Britain’s Home Office says small groups of refugee children have been coming in a weekly basis for the last few months and hundreds are now expected to cross the Channel legally before the Calais camp is destroyed.

Inside the Kids Cafe, a place where teenagers can relax and enjoy a free meal, Wasaal and a dozen of other boys are listening to music while playing pool. The sofas are worn out, but a poster of a red British double-decker bus reminds everyone that London is just a few miles away.

After a perilous three-month journey across countries including Syria, Turkey, and Serbia, Wasaal can’t wait for his British dream to come true.

“Here I’m just wasting my time,” the teenager said in fluent English. “We are too busy dealing with daily life problems. We can’t think properly.”

“I left because my family was in danger,” said the boy, who fled Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan where Taliban are conducting repeated raids. Wasaal has lost touch with his parents, who also fled the violence. His hopes are simple: receiving a proper education in a safe environment.

“I just dream to be in a place where there will be no one to harm me. Back in Afghanistan, I had very good results in two different subjects, physics and mathematics. I want to be an engineer,” he said.

Aid groups agree the Calais slum must be shut down, but are urging authorities to take their time. The refugee youth service has handed mobile phones to hundreds of children and collected information to make sure they won’t go missing when the camp is dismantled. When the southern part of the camp was destroyed in April, 129 children vanished.

“We should do everything to ensure that minors don’t disappear,” Genevieve Avenard, the French government’s children rights watchdog, said during a recent visit. “They are in danger of being exploited. We also need time to give these children their confidence back, so they can set up a project for their future life.”

Mahmud, 16, already knows what he wants to be — a business accountant.

The Afghan teenager, whose parents were killed when he was a boy, hopes he will be transferred to Birmingham, where his uncle has already been in touch with British authorities. In the meantime, he’s bored of wandering around the camp without a plan. At night, he sleeps in Container No. 51, one of the heated white containers holding up to 1,500 people.

Mahmud is also wary of the frequent violence in the camp.

“There are too many fighting here. I really don’t like that,” said the diminutive boy, wearing only a pair of flip flops on a cold afternoon.

Tensions have been growing amid the looming uncertainty. It’s only a matter of weeks before all the Calais migrants will be deported, transferred to England or relocated to more than 160 centers around France. One British charity has warned of possible suicide attempts from desperate migrants.

But new migrants are still arriving.

On Thursday at the Calais-Frethun train station, a young boy in jeans and sneakers stepped out of the express train from Paris. He was immediately arrested by two French police officers.

“We checked his ID, he’s a 17-year-old from Somalia,” one police officer said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. “He wants to go to England. Every day, it’s the same story. They keep on coming.” </s> Calais, France (CNN) French authorities began clearing the "Jungle" refugee camp on Monday, busing out more than 2,000 people by the afternoon as the country readies to raze the patch of wasteland where thousands have made temporary homes.

An old hangar in the port city of Calais was converted into a processing center for between 6,000 and 10,000 migrants. Authorities offered them two choices -- stay in France or go back to their country of origin.
• More than 2,300 migrants left the Jungle on dozens of buses Monday, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said
• There are still 5,000 to 6,000 people living in the camp, Calais Mayor Natacha Bouchart told CNN affiliate BFMTV on Monday evening
• Authorities will begin dismantling the camp on Tuesday, officials said
• Unaccompanied minors and vulnerable youth could be settled in Britain
• Processing is expected to take up to a week

As the time to dismantle neared, groups of people threw stones at authorities and police responded with tear gas.

There were small fires on the camp's outskirts, and a group tried to tip a portable toilet into one of them

Nicknamed "the Jungle," the camp is a grim mosaic of squalid tents, makeshift shelters and tumbledown caravans at the side of a motorway that has become the wretched symbol of Europe's refugee crisis.

Migrants have flocked to Europe by the millions, many from war-torn Syria and African nations. The majority at the camp are from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan.

Some migrants have refused to leave the camp, which sits at one end of the Eurotunnel -- a direct undersea route to Britain that many have risked their lives trying to traverse by hiding in lorries. Some have even walked the 30 miles.

In 2015, the Eurotunnel operator intercepted 37,000 migrants attempting to travel to the UK illegally.

Britain is a preferred destination for many migrants because its economy is doing better than most of its European counterparts, unemployment rates are low and a lot of migrants have at least a basic command of English.

Wahid, a 20-year-old from Jalabad in Afghanistan, tried everything to get to Britain, passing through Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy before reaching France. He has lived in the Jungle for eight months.

"I hoped to go to England, but I've lost my chance. For three months I tried hiding in trucks in the parking (lots), but every time they found me by scanners. They said 'Sorry, no chance, go back to the Jungle," he told CNN.

"I'm a little bit sad that we lose the chance to go to the UK, but I'm happy that the Jungle is to close -- it's a very sad place, a very boring place and we've been living like animals."

Alfodil, a 23-year-old from Sudan, has been living in the Jungle for two months after almost two years stuck in Libya, from where he took the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean "on a small ship, so dangerous" to reach Europe.

"I want to go to the UK if possible, because I like English. I learned English at school, and I wanted to go to high school or college in Edinburgh or London," he said.

Several migrants appear to have been given wristbands that determine where they will be taken. But many with these bands, including Alfodil, did not seem to know where they were going.

At the processing center -- in the middle of an industrial zone -- migrants are being asked to join one of four lines: lone migrants, families, those considered "at risk" (elderly, ill or disabled people, and pregnant women) and unaccompanied minors.

Authorities are trying to spread the migrants out across the whole country. When migrants register at the processing center, they can choose between two regions presented to them for resettlement. When quotas for those regions are reached, authorities open up other areas and accept a number of migrants for places there. Buses headed to at least seven different regions on Monday.

Their instructions were laid out in a leaflet distributed by volunteers on Sunday evening.

"Everybody living in the Calais jungle will have to leave in order to be sheltered in one of the French reception and counseling centers," the letter reads. 

"You will receive help and the necessary information on the procedures that you will need to follow if you have applied or wish to apply for asylum," it adds.

Migrants will 'not be forced'

Since the early hours of Monday, thousands of migrants made their way in groups to the center, packing whatever they had left in wheeled suitcases, backpacks and blue-and-white striped laundry bags, ready to head to their new lives. One even carried a cricket bat and plastic wickets as he joined the long queue.

Unaccompanied minors are the ones with the best chance of reaching Britain. They are being interviewed by French and British authorities to determine if they should be rehomed in the UK, under an agreement offering refuge to children and vulnerable young people. They are being kept in a temporary shelter at the camp until a decision is made in their case.

French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet says migrants will not be forced to get on board buses departing Calais: "This will be done on a voluntary basis and no coercive measures will be taken towards the migrants."

Awad, a 31-year-old from Sudan told CNN: "I tried to get to the UK because I love the United Kingdom," as he queued in the darkness before sunrise.

But he is happy to stay in France if he can -- in the south if possible, where it's warm -- and he is glad to leave the Jungle to "see real life."

But he is still nervous.

"I don't know what will happen, but I hope it will be good." </s> Calais, France (CNN) Migrants torched dozens of makeshift shelters in "The Jungle" refugee camp in France on Wednesday, sending raging fires through the heart of the settlement that firefighters were struggling to extinguish.

A single fire was lit in the early hours of the morning, but by 11 am local time, dozens of tents and shacks were ablaze, sending a suffocating blanket of black smoke over the camp.

The fires followed several nights of clashes this week between police and migrants who refused to leave the camp, as French authorities began bussing residents out by the thousands and demolition teams started tearing the camp down.

Some members of a demolition crew trying to dismantle the jungle were caught up in the Jungle's fires.

"We had anticipated this by prepositioning firefighters as part of this operation and also passed the message to migrants and community representatives not to set fire to the shelters," a Calais prefecture spokesperson aid.

"The cleaning company will today continue the removal of empty shelters to limit the risk of further fires."

The Jungle has become a wretched symbol of Europe's migrant crisis, and France has tried to shut it down several times, only to be denied by the courts. Migrants have long refused to leave the camp, which sits some 30 miles across the Eurotunnel to the UK, one of the more desirable countries for refugees in the region.

'Trying to get to England'

A group of young volunteers from several countries, who have for the past three days stationed themselves to monitor for fires in the camp, rushed to the first large fire set Wednesday.

With no plumbing in the camp, they relied on small extinguishers and a hose attached to a water tank, and tore down surrounding tents to stop the fire spreading.

The shelter had housed a group of Syrians, the activists said, explaining it had taken four days for volunteers to build.

Authorities had by Tuesday night sent more than 4,000 refugees off to other parts of France to begin the process of resettlement.

There are believed to have been up to 10,000 migrants in the camp before the process began Monday.

Many have refused to be settled in France, and have run away to try their chances on the streets of Calais.

Others are refusing to leave, still clinging on to hope that they will make it to Britain.

A 16-year-old Afghan was one of them. He came to the Jungle alone and has lived there for nine months. He doesn't want to stay in France.

He told CNN his name -- Hashoq -- but couldn't say how it was spelt.

"I never learned to write," he said.

"I go. Jungle finished," he said, but couldn't say where he planned to go.

"I'm here working, working, trying to England."
Syrian child refugees previously settled in the Calais jungle legally immigrate into England.