PARIS (Sputnik) — French authorities earlier on Wednesday started the evacuation of unaccompanied children from the demolished Jungle migrant camp in the northern city of Calais, local media reported.
According to French radio Franceinfo, the first bus with 43 minors left the area at around 8:30 a.m. local time (07:30 GMT) and the second one followed it in a short time.
Over 70 buses have been allocated to evacuate about 1,500 minors who used to live in specially equipped shipping containers and to transfer them to refugee centers located across the country, according to the media outlet.
On October 24, French authorities started to dismantle Calais camp, beginning with the relocation of migrants to other facilities across the country with some minors due to be sent to the United Kingdom. The completion of the dismantlement was announced on October 31. In total, more than 5,500 former residents of the camp have taken refuge in special accommodation centers across France.
Since 2015, Calais has been the home to a large migrant camp, notorious for its horrible living conditions. Some 8,000 migrants from the Middle East and North Africa arrived to the Jungle, located not far from the Channel Tunnel, in hopes of reaching the United Kingdom.
