SAN DIEGO (AP) — All-Star shortstop Javier Báez could return to the Chicago Cubs if they reach the playoffs.

Báez saw a hand specialist in Chicago who confirmed the slugger has a hairline...</s>I visited the Jungle earlier this month, just after President François Hollande had said that the camp would be closed down.

In light of this announcement, you might have expected that there would be official information points for the migrants, telling them about the alternative accommodation that the French authorities said they would provide, what they needed to do in order to be moved there, and encouraging them to leave straight away.

Yet, the only government representatives I saw were a couple of officials in red jackets, whom migrants could approach for information.

Very few migrants had received -- or knew how to get -- any information about where they would be moved. Many, rightly, feared that the camp would be demolished before all of the migrants had been moved out.

The consequence of this would be to scatter people across the region, leaving them prey to the dangerous human trafficking gangs that operate in the area. When part of the Jungle was cleared by French authorities earlier this year, it is believed that around 100 children disappeared. Some politicians in France have stated that the only reason the Jungle exists is because the people there want to come to the UK. Yet, when I was there I met families with young children who had already claimed asylum in France, but were still waiting, after five months, to be offered accommodation by the authorities in that country. They had been told that there was nowhere else for them to go. There were also migrants living in Calais who had previously been moved to alternative centers in France, but had found the conditions there so bad that they had decided to return to the Jungle, even though it is little more than a shantytown with only the most basic facilities. Standing next to people queuing for food and firewood in the Calais Jungle, you had to keep reminding yourself that you were in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It is a disgrace that rather than picking up refugees when they enter the European Union, the authorities allow them to travel thousands of miles across the continent, often putting their lives in the hands of dangerous criminal gangs. Furthermore, it is incredible that the French government has allowed the Jungle to grow in size to accommodate 10,000 people, before taking action. These are people that France hoped would just go away. Instead, they have been allowed to fester in the Jungle. The migrants have then used the Jungle as a base to make desperate, dangerous raids into the Port of Calais, or the Channel Tunnel, and to break into the back of lorries crossing to the UK. Many have lost their lives in the process. Join us on Twitter and Facebook People within the camp say that it is little wonder that many of the migrants want to come to Britain. They associate France with the brutality that the police have used against them and the squalid conditions in which they are required to live. Whereas, their image of British people comes from many voluntary aid workers from the UK they see in the camp every day. There should have been a concerted effort many months ago to close down the Jungle and process the claims of the people living there. This must never be allowed to happen again.</s>At 8am, (2aET), authorities in the port town in northern France say "cleaners" will move in to start clearing the site, a thorn in the side of the French government for years, and a gritty and unwelcome symbol of Europe's migrant crisis.

Over the next weeks, contractors are expected to tear down the temporary homes of thousands of people who moved here after lengthy and often treacherous journeys to Europe from Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan.

The French government aims to empty the camp of people within a week or so, and to clear the entire site by the end of December.

Migrants and refugees came to the Jungle hoping it would be a brief stop on their way to Britain but, faced with tightened security at Calais' ferry port and channel tunnel terminals, they found getting into the country far harder than they expected.

Save the Children, one of many NGOs working with the camp's youngest residents, has called for the demolition to be halted while the safety of the estimated 1,200 children living there is assured. The group says vulnerable youngsters in the camp are at risk, and it fears "many children may disappear" if the site is cleared before they are found safe places to stay. "We are deeply concerned for the fate of hundreds of children who remain and who do not know where they will sleep tonight, and have no information on what tomorrow may bring," Carolyn Miles, the NGO's president, said late Monday in a statement. "There is no way the demolition can start until all children have been properly identified and provided for -- to do otherwise would be unconscionable," she added. Bonfires illuminate the night sky as night falls on the Jungle migrant camp on October 24, 2016. , according to France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. , according to France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. More than 2,000 refugees and migrants were evacuated from the camp Monday , according to France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. The minister said 1,918 adults had been taken to 80 shelters across the country, and 400 children placed in temporary shelters, on the first day of the resettlement program. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Police try to maintain order as migrants waiting to be processed wait in crowded lines during the Calais migrant camp evacuation on Monday, October 24. Over the course of three-days, French authorities have given thousands of people living in the migrant camp two options: seek asylum in France or return to their country of origin before the camp is demolished. "The Jungle" is notorious for being a major transit point for migrants and refugees trying to reach Britain. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants leave their makeshift homes in the migrant camp known as "The Jungle" in Calais, France on Monday, October 24. People living in the camp have been told that the camp will be demolished in three days and that they can either apply for asylum in France or return to their home countries. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants register with French authorities before boarding buses that will transport them to shelters across France on October 24. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants board buses that will transport them to shelters around France on October 24. Those applying for asylum will offered temporary accommodation in a shelter while their claim is processed. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Residents of the camp hug before departing the "Jungle" on October 24. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Men, women, and children leave the camp during the first day of the planned eviction on October 24. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Riot police stand off with some of the camp's residents on the evening before the camp eviction is set to take place on October 24. More than 1,000 riot police officers were deployed to the camp Sunday ahead of the closure. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' French police fire tear gas after refugees reportedly threw rocks at police vans near the camp on October 22. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A man walks past a shop spray-painted with the words "Please do not destroy the Jungle" at the migrant camp in Calais on October 12. French authorities are preparing to raze the Calais "Jungle" camp and move thousands of migrants to shelters nationwide. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A view of "The Jungle" migrant camp in Calais on October 12. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Refugees in Calais claimed their rights to pass to Great Britain but were pushed back in the camp by tear gas and flash grenades fired by riot police in Calais, France, on October 1. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants walk past security fencing at "The Jungle" migrant camp on September 6. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' French business owners and locals blockade the main road into the Port of Calais as they wait for the arrival of a convoy of trucks protesting "The Jungle" migrant camp on September 5. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' This aerial view taken August 16 shows the tents and shipping containers housing migrants in "The Jungle" camp, where more than 9,000 migrants live, according to several NGOs. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A French riot policeman stands near graffiti during the dismantling of the southern part of "The Jungle" migrant camp March 10. The graffiti reads "London calling," a reference to how the camp has become notorious for migrants and refugees trying to enter the UK illegally. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A man sews the lips of an Iranian migrant protesting the dismantling of the southern half of "The Jungle" migrant camp on March 3. Journalists said at least nine Iranians stitched their mouths shut and went on a hunger strike in protest. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants stand next to a fire burning shacks in the southern part of "The Jungle" migrant camp March 1, as half of the camp is being dismantled. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A migrant makes a phone call near "The Jungle" on March 1. In the northern French port city of Calais, tensions were high as officials for a second day razed part of the camp, which has become a magnet for people hoping to reach Britain. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A woman fights with a police officer as she is removed from the top of a hut as police clear "The Jungle" migrant camp on March 1. Police and demolition teams are continuing to dismantle makeshift shelters and relocating many people to purpose-built accommodation nearby. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants demonstrate on February 29 during the dismantling of half of "The Jungle" camp. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Riot policemen spray water on migrants and refugees to disperse them during the dismantling of half of "The Jungle" on February 29. Two bulldozers and around 20 workers began destroying makeshift shacks, with 30 police cars and two anti-riot vans stationed nearby. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants walk past housing containers in "The Jungle" camp on February 16. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Two young boys walk in the mud inside "The Jungle" on December 19, 2015. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A man is seen among tents in "The Jungle" on October 7. Despite several efforts to close the site, migrants and refugees continue to arrive in Calais. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' French police oversee the removal of tents on September 21. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Afghan and Pakistani migrants eat lunch in the migrant camp on August 14. Some 3,000 migrants and refugees were living in the tent village at this time. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants walk along the railway track leading to the Eurotunnel in Calais on August 10. Migrants attempt to enter the UK illegally by stowing away on trucks, ferries, cars or trains. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A migrant hides on the train tracks in the direction of the Eurotunnel terminal on August 11. Police on August 10 arrested five people suspected of trafficking migrants between France and Britain. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' The home of Sami, a refugee living in the "The Jungle," is pictured on August 9. Sami, who has lived in the camp for two months, said: "We made this house from blankets and wood and then covered it in plastic to keep the rain out. It rains often in France. I think it will rain often when I am in England, too." The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Several migrants successfully cross the Eurotunnel terminal on July 28, and walk on the side of the railroad as they try to reach a shuttle to the UK. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Displaced from "The Jungle" camp, Afghan migrants congregate in Calais harbor on September 23, 2009. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' A digger lifts a migrant's makeshift tent during one of the destruction operations at the migrant camp on September 22. French police removed around 300 migrants who were taken to centers in Calais where they could apply for voluntary assisted repatriation or asylum. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' An aerial view taken on September 21, shows the area known as "The Jungle" in Calais, where hundreds of migrants gather to try to gain passage to Britain. The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants from Afghanistan look at a ferry boat on the border of the Channel on September 19, in Calais, northern France. This was the same year former French immigration minister, Eric Besson, announced the Government would close the camp. However, in 2016, thousands still occupy "The Jungle." The saga of the Calais 'Jungle' Migrants jump onto the back of a UK-bound truck on March 1, 2006. Opinion: How failure after failure let down refugees in Calais "My family is in England" British MP on Calais: Now the real challenge begins British MP on Calais: Now the real challenge begins Buses loaded with hundreds more residents of the Jungle are expected to be bussed to new homes around France on Tuesday as the dismantling of the camp begins in earnest. But some appear determined to stay at almost any cost; a handful of people were involved in skirmishes with riot police at the site late Monday, throwing stones at officers who responded by firing tear gas rounds towards them. Earlier in the day, two Afghan residents of the camp told CNN they would not leave the camp, because to do so would mean turning their backs on a long-held dream to make it to Britain. Care workers bring child migrants to a reception point outside the Jungle migrant camp before boarding buses to refugee centres around France. "I'm going to England," 15-year-old Afghan teenager Hussein said. "I don't like France. My family is in England." His friend, who declined to give his name, said he would be going to UK and would refuse to leave the Jungle. It remains unclear just how French authorities will deal with those who refuse point blank to move out; before the evacuation program began, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said migrants would not be forced to board buses and leave the town. "This will be done on a voluntary basis and no coercive measures will be taken towards the migrants," he said.</s>The infamous Calais Jungle refugee camp in northern France is being dismantled and thousands are being relocated to hundreds of refugee centres across the country.

There were violent protests in the ‘jungle’ on Monday as the clear-up to remove 10,000 refugees began.

“Violence has become the norm here, with some of the migrants throwing projectiles, stones and bottles at police, which responded with tear gas,” RT’s Harry Fear reported from Calais.

“There’s a risk tensions increase in the week because at some point the bulldozers are going to have to come in,” Fabrice Durieux from the charity Salam told Reuters.

On Monday, thousands of migrants – primarily from the Middle East and North Africa – separated into families, adults, unaccompanied minors and vulnerable individuals, were queuing up to be bussed to reception centers where those who haven’t yet applied for asylum will be able to do so.

“There’s a large number of those in the camp who don’t want to go to refugee centers. Some research from refugee groups suggests that one third want to stay in Calais,” RT’s correspondent reported.

Some say that refugees, determined to reach the UK at any cost, would simply hide nearby for a while to regroup in Calais at a later point, when things calm down.

“Each time they dismantle part of the camp it’s the same thing,” Christian Salome, president of non-profit group Auberge des Migrants, said. “You’re going to see them go into hiding and then come back. The battles will continue.”

Thousands of French nationals have been up in arms over President Francois Hollande’s plan to relocate immigrants in as many as 450 centers across the country.

“We intend to dismantle Calais entirely, and relocate people throughout France with small centers for 40-60 people staying for a limited period of three to four months. This will happen in full coordination with the migrants,” Hollande said in late September.

The far-right National Front party says the government plan would create mini-Calais camps across France, however.

Locals have also been voicing outrage over the decision to build refugee shelters in their towns.

“The problem is not to distribute migrants across the country, the problem is that French people don’t want them anymore,” a resident of Louveciennes in the Île-de-France region told RT. “The French don’t want immigration. This is the reality,” he added.

“What will migrants do here? They don’t learn French; we don’t teach them the values of the Republic. Even on the health side. We’re not able to treat them correctly,” a woman from Yvelines in northern France told RT.

Many people in France are opposed to relocating the refugees and migrants throughout the country, French municipal councilor Patricia Chagnon told RT. “France has about eight million poor people who are in desperate need of government aid and we have three million people waiting for a decent place to live in France. So they think why can [the government] find room, all of a sudden, for these migrants when they cannot even look after their own people,” she said.

It’s not just the decision to redistribute the refugees that has the French at loggerheads with their government, but also how it is being carried out, the municipal councilor said. The socialist government “have not consulted at all with the local population; they had not talked at all with the local politicians to see how and under what conditions it would be possible to organize this. They have simply imposed these migrants all over France. And we don’t even know where.”

Experts say there’s also an important “political aspect” behind the human side of the migrant problem.

“The human side is of course the problem of migrants, losing their homes, etc. The project of the mainstream political parties is to transform the French into a multicultural society. And France is not a multicultural society,” Claude Rochet, Professor at the Institute of Public Management, Aix-Marseille University, told RT.

The British and French governments are in hot waters over relocating the refugees from the Jungle camp in Calais, Sanwar Ali, editor at workpermit.com, told RT on Friday, adding that the UK could have done more to deal with its responsibilities.

“France is resettling many refugees. The reason why they are closing down the camp in Calais is because they have had some success of resettling refugees. The UK also has great responsibilities, and the UK is doing many things to try and deal with the responsibilities. However, I think many people have also criticized the UK for not doing enough. So perhaps more can be done,” he added.

The Jungle houses between 5,000 and 10,000 asylum seekers, according to estimates from different human right groups working on the site. There are currently some 1,000 unaccompanied children in the camp, the British Red Cross said in its report.

According to the Red Cross, the UK has been refusing to take in unaccompanied refugee minors stranded in the Jungle, preventing them from being reunited with families there. The group blamed UK Home Office bureaucracy for causing unaccompanied children to be stranded and in danger of losing all protection and shelter once the camp is finally dismantled.

On the first day of the dismantling of the camp, the UK Home Office has not been allowed to register children, the Guardian reported, citing the Help Refugees charity. As a result, “the most vulnerable group, the under 13’s” will have to remain at least for a night in the Calais Jungle “amidst all the confusion and chaos,” the charity said, adding that according to its latest census there are 49 unaccompanied children in the age group there, the youngest of whom is eight years old.

Earlier this month, Labour MPs pressed UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd to clarify how many of the 1,000 unaccompanied children in Calais the UK would take, but Rudd refused to provide an exact figure. She told the Daily Mail that if 300 child refugees came to the UK it would be “a really good result.”

Charities estimate some 387 children are entitled to move to the UK, roughly half of whom have family members already in the country.</s>Migrants stream out of Calais 'Jungle' camp before demolition

CALAIS, France -- Migrants lugging their meagre 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 coachload carrying 50 Sudanese left at about 8:45 a.m. (0645 GMT), heading for the Burgundy region of east-central France.

By midday, hundreds of people were 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 1 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.</s>The infamous shantytown called the “Jungle,” in Calais, France, is now being dismantled. It has been a vivid symbol of the refugee-migrant crisis, and also characteristic of Europe’s mixed, bureaucratic attempts at how to deal with it.

The Jungle of Calais has been the migrants’ attempt to rescue themselves, making their own temporary shelters and foraging for food. Many migrants built their hopes on the false premise that Britain was almost a promised land, if only the migrants could cross the English Channel by way of the Eurotunnel – dangerously, on a literal underground railroad, as if inviting an accident.

At its height, the Jungle had a population of about 10,000. As time went by, many of the migrants at Calais came to realize that their hopes of the Channel crossing and finding any relatives and friends in England were slim. Rumours of Brexit and economic slowdown in Britain may have figured, too.

The migrants were, in the meantime, exposed to contaminated water and all sorts of other sordid conditions. They typically only had one meal a day. The camp’s population has fallen to 6,300, as if by a natural process. But as of a recent count, there are still 539 unaccompanied minors, for whom we must fear.

In the light, or rather the shadow of all this, the migrants are right to yield to the not-so-very-terrible ministrations of the French bureaucracy.

Instructions have been given not to use bulldozers to tear down the migrants’ shelters; instead, the French workers are taking apart their former homes by slower, less aggressive methods, though some sledgehammers are at work.

The former inhabitants of the Jungle will be distributed by bus among 280 “reception centres” across France, where they will be housed and have their refugee claims processed – and accepted or ultimately rejected. This is their least bad prospect, unless war recedes from their homelands.

In spite of all this, maybe as many as 200 migrants may persist in Calais, scrounging some sort of living, or else finding some way across the Strait of Dover – 35 kilometres at the narrowest point, or getting a small boat to the nearby, visible Channel Islands, which are British. Somehow, the next country on is always believed to be the better one.</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>Authorities will begin what may be the largest mass evacuation in France since the second World War at dawn on Monday, in what aid workers predict will be the futile demolition of the migrant camp known as the Calais “Jungle”.

President Francois Hollande promised on September 26th to dismantle the country’s largest shanty town by the end of the year. A census by the prefecture on October 11th counted 6,486 residents of the Jungle, including 1,291 unaccompanied minors.

The government has deployed 1,250 police, in addition to the 2,100 police and gendarmes already in Calais, 40 agents from the French office for immigration and integration (OFII) and a dozen translators. Pamphlets in all the languages of the camp were distributed on Sunday, explaining the procedure.

A 3,000sq m hangar adjacent to the camp has been transformed into what Fabienne Buccio, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, calls a “bus station”. The migrants are to divide into four queues: adults, unaccompanied minors, families, and the most vulnerable, including pregnant women and those under medical treatment.

Under this triage system, each migrant will be given a colour-coded bracelet corresponding to the French region he or she chooses, taken to a tent with migrants bound for the same region, then picked up by a coach there.

The prefects at the place of destination will be notified of the coach’s departure, and the progress of each vehicle will be tracked by a satellite positioning system. Police and gendarmes will be present at “pit-stops”.

Sixty coaches will depart Calais on Monday; 45 each day thereafter, until the camp is empty. The entire operation is expected to take between 10 days and two weeks. Unaccompanied minors will be entrusted to France Terre d’asile, and will be housed for two weeks in the heated freight container dormitories that were set up in a fenced-in part of the Jungle last winter.

The fate of the unaccompanied minors is still to be resolved. The majority want to go to England, where up to 500 have family members.

Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has called on the British government to “step up its efforts” in line with their “moral duty”. About 70 minors were transferred from Calais to the UK last week, and a dozen agents from the home office are in Calais to process the children.

But British media have published photographs of alleged minors who appear to be over 18. A Tory MP demanded dental tests to prove their age, which was refused by the dental association on ethical grounds.

In its statement on the demolition of the camp, the Immigrant Council of Ireland lamented the Irish Government’s “recent commitment to take in only 20 lone children this year”.

The French government is under renewed pressure to renounce the Touquet accords concluded by then president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2003. Alain Juppé, the conservative presidential candidate deemed most likely to win the presidential election next May, says it is “intolerable” for France to be expected to sort migrants Britain does or doesn’t want on behalf of the UK.

British prime minister Theresa May responded on October 21st, saying she has no intention of modifying the Touquet agreement.

Aid workers estimate that up to half the inhabitants of the Jungle will refuse to move to “welcome and orientation centres”, or CAOs, across France. The CAOs, in abandoned barracks, schools and holiday camps, have increased in number from 164 to 280.

Migrants who’ve been “Dublined”, the term for those who were finger-printed and registered on setting foot in the EU, in line with the Dublin accords, fear they will be sent back to the country where they first arrived.

Up to 3,500 migrants have vanished from the camp in the run-up to the evacuation. It is not clear if migrants who refuse to move to CAOs will be allowed to leave the Jungle peacefully, or sent to detention centres.

Migrants are resorting to ever more desperate means, such as attempting to row across the Channel, one of the world’s busiest waterways, in rubber dinghies, or pooling resources to purchase small speed boats.

Traffickers have raised prices from approximately €700 before the 2015 crisis to an average of €5,000.

French officials note that the UN high commissioner for refugees has called for the closure of the camp. “Everyone knows another winter in the Jungle is not possible,” housing minister Emmanuelle Cosse wrote in Libération newspaper on October 14th. “It is out of question that we leave people any longer in the mud and distress.”

Conditions in the camp are terrible, with no electricity and little water. A female interpreter for a French television crew was raped at knife-point on the outskirts of the Jungle on October 18th. The same day, a 26-year-old African was beaten to death at the Norrent-Fontes camp, 60km away.

According to official figures, 33 migrants have met violent deaths in the Calais region since January 2015, most while attempting to board trains or lorries bound for Britain. An Eritrean died when he was hit by a British motorist on October 9th.

Local mayors and residents are mostly deaf to government pleas for “national solidarity” with Calais. There have been demonstrations or acts of vandalism against relocating the residents of the Jungle in the Drôme, Essonne, Hérault, Isère, Loire-Atlantique and Var departments.

A poster commissioned by Robert Ménard, the extreme right-wing mayor of Béziers, south central France, showed a crowd of African and Arab men in front of Saint-Nazaire cathedral. “The State is imposing them on us. This is it. The migrants are coming!” said the poster, which was removed after complaints by anti-racist groups.

Contrary to right-wing predictions, the most likely outcome is not the creation of “mini-jungles” across France, but a return to the situation that followed the closure of the Sangatte camp by Sarkozy in 2002, when aid organisations were forced to distribute tents, blankets and food by the roadside.

Aid volunteers now fear that an operation portrayed by the government as “resolutely humanitarian” will instead precipitate a worse humanitarian crisis.</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."</s>MORE than 1,200 police and officials in France have begun an operation to clear the “Jungle” migrant camp in Calais.

 The camp has been housing some 7,000 people in squalid conditions.

 Migrants queued peacefully to be processed, and the first of some 60 coaches that will carry them to refugee centres across France have now left.

 There is concern that some migrants will refuse to go because they still want to get to Britain, and there were some clashes over the weekend.

 The demolition of the camp is expected to take place on Tuesday.

 The UK has begun to accept some of the estimated 1,300 unaccompanied children from the camp.

 The first group without family ties to the UK has arrived in Britain under the “Dubs amendment” rules, which grant refuge to the most vulnerable.

 The BBC’s Simon Jones, at the camp, says most people seemed in good spirits despite the slightly chaotic scenes. But one Sudanese man shouted: “Our dream is over.”

 The migrants are being placed into separate queues to determine who are in families, travelling alone or whether they are in vulnerable categories.

 After processing they will leave for various parts of France and be given the opportunity to claim asylum. If they do not, they could face deportation.

 There are 7,500 beds being made available in 450 centres across France.

 The first coach left less than an hour after processing began – carrying 50 Sudanese to the Burgundy region, AFP reported.

 By mid-morning there were long lines at the entrance to the registration centre.

 Officials have predicted that some 2,500 people will leave the camp on Monday.

 Rue des Garennes links the Jungle camp to the new migrant processing centre, and is a street of suitcases and resignation.

 At 05:00, three hours before the clearance operation was due to start, groups of refugees and migrants began to form a queue. Since then, a mass exodus from the camp and hundreds are now lining the road waiting for a coach to take them away.

 Towards the back of the queue is Adil from Sudan, carrying two bags, a football and a guitar. “My dream is dead, the people you see here, and they are broken. We can’t believe it’s over.”

 Inside the camp, aid workers from Care for Calais are moving tent to tent, warning migrants that if they don’t leave, they’ll be arrested. The police presence is large, with many huddled in riot vans, keeping out of the cold, and making the most of the calm.

 Children will be housed in the camp’s converted shipping containers while the rest of the Jungle is dismantled.

 From Tuesday, heavy machinery will be sent to clear the tents and shelters that have been left behind. The whole operation is expected to take three days.

 The French interior ministry said it “does not want to use force but if there are migrants who refuse to leave, or NGOs who cause trouble, the police might be forced to intervene”.
France clears the Calais Jungle, relocating six thousand migrants.