End of the 'Jungle': Migrant Camp Coming Down in France

A camp that has come to symbolize Europe's struggle to handle an ever-growing wave of migrants is being emptied and dismantled near Calais, France. Nicknamed the "Jungle," the camp has been home to somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 people, and a mass evacuation got started Monday, reports the AP. The migrants will be ushered through a processing center, then bused to temporary centers around France, where their pleas for asylum will be formally examined. At that point, they'll either be shipped back to their country of origin or allowed to remain. Unaccompanied kids—about 1,300 are estimated to be at the camp—will be processed separately, and many are expected to be allowed into Britain under new rules, reports the Guardian.

As the New York Times reports, the migrants come from nations such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Sudan, and they flocked to the camp near Calais in the hope they could then sneak into Britain, perhaps by hitching a ride on a truck over the Channel Tunnel. (The original trip to Calais typically involved a dangerous trip across the Mediterranean.) Many think they have a better chance of finding work in the UK than elsewhere in Europe, notes the BBC. So far, the evacuation has remained largely peaceful, but tensions seemed to be rising, reports BuzzFeed. When all are out, authorities will destroy the camp. (More migrants stories.)