At 7.30am on December 3, dozens of riot police and gendarme officers circled the Dunes industrial zone in Calais and proceeded to evacuate the grounds which consist of little more than a tiny bit of forest and some wasteland. It is located just a few hundred meters from where the notorious “Jungle” camp once stood. While the operation was underway, journalists were barred from the area, and were kept about a kilometer away from where the action was taking place.

Several aid group workers witnessed the evacuation however, saying that authorities had chartered some 15 buses which each took around 30 migrants. “We don’t know where the buses took them, or whether the people getting on the buses were given any information about where they were being taken,” Eugénie Jolly, who works for the humanitarian aid groups L’Auberge des Migrants and Human Rights Observers, told InfoMigrants.

#Calais Énième démantèlement massif depuis 7h30 ce matin.▶️ @CCastaner @Prefet62 pour mettre les gens à l'abri du froid c'est bien.▶️ Pour invisibiliser les #exilé.e.s ça ne marche pas !Quand allez-vous comprendre @EmmanuelMacron @EPhilippePM et chercher de vrais solutions ?! pic.twitter.com/1HUbg1kDEq

— Auberge des Migrants (@AubergeMigrants) 3 décembre 2019

Local NGOs say that it's common for authorities to keep the destination of these migrant buses secret since they fear that some migrants might refuse boarding if they learn that they will be transported to another French department. “On October 23, 2018, I witnessed a departure following the evacuation of the Grand Synthe [migrant camp]. Not even the driver knew where the bus was going before the actual departure. A local official yelled out the destination just as the bus started rolling. I’m sure it’s always like that,” Claire Millot, general secretary of the Salam aid group, says.

Following the evacuation, Pas-de-Calais authorities issued a statement saying that 331 single men had boarded nine buses and that 43 illegal migrants had been taken into custody as authorities arrange for their future deportation. “We saw two border police vans as well as a car belonging to the detention center on the scene. The two vans were full when they left,” Jolly recounts.

Up to 600 migrants

In the statement, the authorities said that: “for several weeks,” the “Hedda forest”, which is private property, “had been occupied in an illegal and prolonged manner by migrants lacking permission from the owners”. In all, it said that the camp had housed 350 people, living “in extremely precarious conditions” in 250 tents.

It added that these type of camps “cause serious security and hygiene problems,” noting also that the evacuation had been ordered on October 10, and that information had been put up in the camp about it on October 19.

While the Salam aid group estimates that “between 300 and 500 refugees” - mainly men from Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iran – lived in the camp, L’Auberge des Migrants puts the number as high as “500 to 600”.

Jolly believes some migrants will return to the area within the next few days, “but the goal of this dismantling operation is to close off the forest lining the Gravelines road. At the moment, work is going on in the forest with trees being cut down, and the foundations for a fence have been installed.”  

Jolly adds that this is also the area where the state-mandated Vie Active distributes breakfasts to migrants. “There’s an evacuation here, and just afterwards, Vie Active comes around to hand out breakfast, it’s absurd.”