Soon after he arrived at the so-called “Jungle” migrant camp in Calais, alone and ill from a badly infected cut to his stomach, 12-year-old Wahid was provided with a wooden shack in which to live.

On Tuesday night, his makeshift home demolished by French work crews, he was sleeping just a few hundred metres away, but now inside a small, draughty tent.

The plight of the young Iranian and two dozen of his compatriots, all of whose homes were knocked down on Tuesday, highlights a curious paradox in the methodical dismantling of the camp by French authorities.

Just about everyone, even the volunteer groups who provided Wahid’s shelter in the first place, agrees the camp as it stands is not a good solution for the thousands of refugees and migrants on France’s northern shore hoping of somehow reaching Britain. And yet no one seems very clear on exactly where they are supposed to go. For now, most are staying put.

Police remove protesters from a shelter. Guardian

A second day of demolition work on Tuesday was again punctuated by protests, involving both some of the multinational residents and political activists drawn to the cause.

With the orange-vested workers again protected by dense lines of riot police as they knocked down huts with hammers and power tools, the debris then lifted into skips by diggers, a dozen or so migrants and activists climbed on to the roofs of shacks next in line to be demolished.

While they were eventually persuaded down, earlier in the day police used batons to remove a man and a woman, believed to be a migrant and his pregnant wife, from another roof after she cut her wrist in an apparent protest.

Later, up to six wooden-framed homes near the demolition zone burned down, seemingly set alight deliberately.

The trouble was less severe than that seen on Monday’s first day of work, in which police fired CS gas canisters at people who were throwing rocks and trying to get access to lorries heading to the ferry port along the adjoining and heavily fenced road.

France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, blamed these clashes on activists from the British group No Borders, which campaigns against immigration controls. He accused them of harassing French officials, saying three people had been arrested. Nonetheless, Cazeneuve added, the clearing operation would continue.

Olivia Long, a volunteer with the relatively new but hugely active British group Help Refugees, spent the afternoon finding temporary shelter for Wahid and his friends.

“He ran up to us saying: ‘I lost my house’,” Long said. “More and more of his friends came, and we ended up with about 25 people who needed somewhere to stay.

“Some of them had their stuff in binbags, but some had nothing. I’m assuming they weren’t given enough time.”

The group is now sleeping inside small tents set up within big marquees provided by French authorities but the tents are too cold to sleep in without further shelter.

Anti-riot police have been present throughout the demolition. Photograph: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

The Calais prefecture, which fought a court battle to win approval for the demolition programme, says it wants people to move either into an adjoining compound of converted shipping containers, or to take buses to accommodation centres elsewhere in France.

But the container camp is mistrusted – it is behind turnstiles, activated by handprints – and only has about 150 spaces left, with about 3,500 people left in the main part of the camp. And while a small number of residents decide to take the daily bus to new camps, many more seem set on staying, at least for now.

“I will stay here,” said a man from Darfur, who said his shelter was close to those already dismantled. “I don’t want to go to England any more, just stay here.” Almost every migrant spoken to on Tuesday, even those very close to the demolition, said they wanted to remain in the Calais area.

“If I can stay, I stay,” a Pakistani man said. “Or I try a new place near.”



Following the clashes on Monday, migrants and volunteers spent much of the next day moving dozens of donated caravans used by children and families away from trouble spots.

“They asked us to help them move,” said Liz Clegg, a volunteer who has taken on a semi-official role caring for many of the unaccompanied children in the camp, some aged 10 or 11. “They’re frightened, some of the families have got very young children.”

Clegg is also among the numerous English volunteers in Calais, a phenomenon that one helper said can have the unintended effect of making some camp residents more determined than ever to reach a UK they now view as particularly caring.

A truck carrying debris from the camp. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Zipping a warm hood on to the coat of a wriggling Afghan boy, Clegg said she worried for the children amid an eviction process seemingly speeding up.

“We agree about the Jungle not being a suitable place for people to live, and we’d totally support the local authorities to sort this out,” she said.

“But we thought people would get a week to consider their options. And it would have worked. But wade in with gas canisters and you’re going to scatter people and cause fear and resentment.”

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, called on Tuesday in the House of Lords for Britain to “very quickly” take some of the children from the Calais camp, but his words are unlikely to be heeded.

Long said that, as things stand, most people will only be pushed further inside a contracting main camp or nearby on the northern French coast.

“People are just going to worse conditions in the camp, or if they do decide to leave it’s only to a smaller Jungle just down the road,” she said. “There’s a couple of little ones that have sprung up nearby, on the way to Dunkirk.”

The impasse leaves volunteer groups with something of a dilemma – being asked for guidance but having little in the way of real advice to give.

Long said her group had the eviction warnings from French authorities translated into about 10 of the languages spoken around the camp and handed out as leaflets on Sunday.

“It’s quite hard distributing information like that because people always ask: ‘What do you think I should do, where should I go?’” she said. “And you don’t want to tell them what to do. But they know us and want to know what we think.”

The Calais prefecture, meanwhile, seems content to play a longer game, counting on the likelihood that as more and more of the camp is demolished, people will consider other options.

About 40 people took coaches to accommodation centres elsewhere on Monday, with 30 more doing the same on Tuesday, a spokesman for the prefecture said.

He added: “As the demolition goes on, we can see that more and more migrants seem to be accepting their fate and agreeing to relocate.”