15:24

Lisa has been speaking to some of the people in the camp today:

Habib Ahmadzai, 23, from Afghanistan

Habib Ahmadzai, a 23-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, who was living in the Calais camp. Photograph: Lisa O'Carroll for the Guardian

Habib is a business management graduate from Logar in Afghanistan, a town still under control of the Taliban.

He is close to tears as he tells of his ordeal and his frustrations at trying to be with family in the UK – from trying to jump on lorries to getting beaten up by smugglers – which he says has cost him $13,000 (£10,600). At 23, he is five years too old to be taken in under the Dublin regulation.

“I am six months here in the camp. My whole family, my brothers and sisters are living in the UK, and my nephews. I have no one in my country. So what I have to do, I have to join my family. But they say ‘no, no’ you are not a teenager. You should go back to your country.

“They said I should apply for asylum. I am allowed to apply for asylum in France but I don’t want, I want to rejoin my family in UK. My brother, sisters, sisters-in-law have been there for 20 years.

“I am an educated person. How can I live here?,” he asks pointing to the camp. “[The Taliban] said ‘you are not muslim, you are working for government officials’,” he says to explain why he fled his country.

“Officials say I have no reason to be here. But why would I be here? I have a problem. [You have to ask] why am I here in this jungle place.”

He says he does not want to be cleared from the site but will reluctantly board the bus when his time comes.

“I am not happy. I am not happy with what happened with me. My family are like a few hundred kilometres from me and now I have to go a thousand kilometres back.

“I think it’s UK and France double standards. They look after the children. And I understand, they are helpless. But I am helpless too.”

He said the challenges in the camp were a symptom of war and injustice that the west has had a part in.

“There are 10,000 individuals in there, 10,000 minds in there. Each one of them has a story, has their individual problem, each one has their reason to be there. Some of them are crazy, sometimes there are fights. But you have to ask, what made them like that. No one wants to be in the jungle, no one.”

Referring to the squalor of the camp, the lack access to cooking facilities, to privacy, to education, he said: “This is a violation of human rights. The UK and France are responsible for this. This is an injustice.”

He spent $13,000 to get to France to be within what he thought was a whisker of his family, but now the devastation is writ large on his face as he heads to join the queues for the buses. “I understand they want to help children and take them to the UK. but I am a human too. I am human too,” he says, almost in tears.

Habib Ahmadzai

Majit Nurzei, from Afghanistan

Calais camp clearance: Nine men from one village. Majit Nurzei is pictured on the far right, with the drum. Photograph: Lisa O'Carroll/The Guardian

Majit Nurzei can be heard long before he is seen. As he emerges from the first tent in the processing centre, it’s as if all his dreams have come true. He’s on his way to Pays de la Loire and a fresh start in France along with nine friends from the same village in Laghman province in eastern Afghanistan.

He leads the merry band of friends through the hangar to the next queue, cheering and banging his drum.

He sticks out his tongue to show off a long gash where the tip should have been. It was cut off by Daesh, he says. They also broke his fingers and his nose because he helped the “enemy” government.

How did he get here?

“Walking, pay smugglers. It took six months to come to Calais,” he says. “I love France,” he says in anticipation of a successful asylum application.

He and his friends are dismissive of the UK. “UK finished, UK no good,” says Akrium. “Too much headache. They do not give us a chance. They have children but not to adult people.”

They are heading in one bus and full of excitement about their new life. “Is it good there?” they ask of a region of France they have never heard of.

It wasn’t until they got to the hangar after hours of queueing that they knew where they were going. Like many they asked to be kept together. The French officials who were handed out the colour-coded wristbands were obliging anyone who wanted to be kept together with their friends. They were shown a large map of the regions of France and asked which one they wanted to go to.

By lunchtime, there were off to a new life and the first proper bed for months. “Goodbye Jungle,” they chant as they are shepherded into their last tent before they board the bus.

Mimi Gebreh Howit, 29 and Tigst Lakew, 29 from Eritrea

Mimi Gebreh Howit and Tigst Lakew - Eritreans living in the Calais camp. Photograph: Lisa O'Carroll for the Guardian

Mimi and Tigst have been in the camp for three months and through broken English they explain they “had no choice”.



“I am not happy to be in this camp and I am not happy to leave because I don’t know what will happen now. The camp will close and I don’t know where it is moving to,” says Mimi.

Mimi left Eritrea because of religious persecution, while Tigst left because of unidentified “political” reasons. They both want to go to Canada, where they have relatives. Family is all they dream of.

They look way beyond their years and have had a tough life. When they pose for a photograph and they are asked to smile, Mimi says: “I’m not smiling, because I am not happy. I would be happy if I could go home, but I can’t.”

Her mother and father divorced when she was six years old, with the family split between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Her mother and her sister went to Addis Abiba. She and her brother remained with their father in Eritrea. But, when she was 16, her father left to seek out a better life. He made it to Libya but they have not heard from him since. “We do not know if he is alive,” says Mimi.