As the toxic symbol of Europe’s migrant crisis is demolished, the personal tragedies continue for the thousands involved

Some refugees have already left. But not to go where they wanted: not across the Channel to Britain, which they believed would offer sanctuary. Instead, they have headed along the French coast, others south towards Paris and some down towards Italy.

As dawn breaks over northern France on Monday, demolition will begin at the sprawling camp on the outskirts of Calais, home to up to 10,000 refugees, including an estimated 1,300 lone children. Sixty buses are scheduled to arrive to take away 3,000 people, scattering them to accommodation centres throughout France. The exercise is expected to be repeated on Tuesday and Wednesday.

It is the endgame for a site that has increasingly become the toxic symbol of Europe’s migrant crisis and the subject of rancorous debate among French politicians and the British media.

Inside the camp itself, the countdown to clearance has prompted panic. On Saturday charities were frantically handing out secondhand suitcases to families, disseminating advice on what to do when the dreaded columns of the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité – the riot police – converge on the camp.

Some are not prepared to find out. “A few boys left yesterday, they asked if I wanted to go,” said Abdul Shahnawaz, 16, from Musa Qala, Helmand province, Afghanistan, who has lived in the camp since March. Did they say where? “That way,” said Abdul, pointing towards Belgium.

Of the huge numbers of children who have stayed, many remain bewildered. Outside the Refugee Youth Service, a large crowd was following a boisterous football game featuring child refugees. Among them stood a group of five teenagers, aged between 15 and 17, from the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur, who had met each other in the camp.

All were eligible to come to Britain: some had relatives in the UK, others qualified under a separate government scheme to help unaccompanied minors stranded on the continent. All had heard the rumours, the swirl of gossip and half-truths, that has electrified the camp with fresh uncertainty.

Less than 48 hours before the demolition was due to begin, none of the Darfur children seemed convinced the camp would close.

“We have been told nothing, but I don’t want to go anywhere – only the UK,” said Ahmed, 15. His friend, Walid, 16, pointed to the tree line that marks the southern perimeter of Europe’s largest shanty town – the camp is not officially recognised by the French authorities – and admitted he was contemplating hiding in the woods when the police arrived. Abrahim, 16, said that some children had discussed fleeing to Paris.

Another member of the group, Rashif, 17, refused to countenance that the refugee town he had called home since February would be destroyed. He gestured towards the camp’s main strip, lined with Afghan, Sudanese and Persian restaurants and grocers – already bustling mid-morning – and shook his head. His friend, Ahmed, 16, did not know what to believe, saying that the increasingly persistent rumour that the camp was definitely closing might prove another false alarm.

“We are always hearing that the camp will go,” he said, before describing his journey from the conflict of west Sudan to northern France – a trip that began when he was aged 14 and involved 12 months in Tripoli, Libya, where he was forced to make bread at gunpoint for a militia group.

As the day wore on, word spread that the camp’s vast population of unaccompanied minors would not be forced on to the buses. Instead, they would be temporarily rehoused in the converted white shipping containers that the French government built on the site as accommodation blocks in March. Here, it is hoped that the claims of hundreds of children as young as 10 who are eligible for UK entry will be processed in relative safety.

The fact that details of the container resettlement emerged late on Friday is indicative of the Britain’s approach to the crisis. Charities, volunteer groups and aid agencies believe Theresa May’s government was doggedly against taking significant numbers of child refugees from Calais and only when it became politically expedient did it acquiesce. All the evidence suggests that the Home Office began prioritising the issue only a few days before the camp’s scheduled demolition.

About 60 eligible children arrived in the UK from northern France last week. Ten times that number are thought to remain in the camp.

“We have been campaigning for a year for the UK government to help the children in Calais and then they try and do it all in a week, which obviously they couldn’t,” said Josie Naughton of the charity Help Refugees.

The Lib Dem peer Baroness Sheehan, who visited the camp on Friday, said: “I have absolutely no idea what the Home Office have been doing. It’s been an absolute, utter shambles, completely chaotic. The recent arrivals are a damage limitation exercise.”

She, along with 18 aid and refugee organisations and another 120 MPs and peers, is among the signatories of a letter to the home secretary, Amber Rudd, that declares they would “not tolerate a situation whereby demolition of the camp will make the children even more vulnerable”.

Yet those youngsters who did make it to Britain last week also revealed that the Home Office is operating in a climate where a toxic discourse around even child refugees has seeped into the mainstream. In addition, last week’s call by Conservative backbenchers to introduce dental x-ray checks to verify the age of child refugees continues to shock volunteers in the camp. “Where has the humanity gone?” said Lally Mergler of the camp’s unofficial women and children’s centre.

Similarly, the accusation that some of the arrivals were adults pretending to be children because they appeared older than 18 has also horrified those who can testify that the stress, living conditions and hardship of their journeys can rapidly age adolescents’ features.

The key point, say volunteers, is that the process to gain entry into the UK is extensive and bureaucratic, typically involving 10 hours of legal work for each child just on verification.

“The children have to provide documentation, evidence. The Home Office process is extremely rigorous: it is mendacious to claim otherwise,” said Naughton. The claim that only males were being allowed into the UK is also wrong. At least one Eritrean girl arrived last week.

Before the buses start arriving on Monday, the authorities and volunteers are also working to make sure the cohort of refugees suffering mental health issues are looked after. “There are going to be many families, vulnerable people, people with mental health issues, that need looking after,” said Sheehan.

Dan de Maine, who works with Help Refugees’ vulnerabilities team, said he hoped that three profoundly deaf Sudanese men – Mohammed, 17, Hamid, 23, and Mostafa, 20 – would be among those awarded a new life in Britain. Last week the Home Office took their details for consideration. “By registering them we have effectively kept them here hoping, waiting and praying as the demolition crews and riot police ready themselves,” said de Maine.

Despite the tension generated by the impending demolition, one remarkable trait of the camp endures – the general friendliness of its children. Even on Saturday, groups smiled as they shared jokes or calmly queued by themselves for food.

Andy Elvin, chief executive of Tact, the UK’s largest fostering and adoption charity with more than 500 carers, is not surprised. Feedback he receives shows that unaccompanied minors are the favourite type of children among their foster parents. “They are thoughtful, kind, respectful and extremely keen to learn. They have a relativity that makes them appreciate life. Most foster parents say they are an absolute joy,” he said.

Many hope the joy is shared more widely and that the UK keeps promises to help the refugee children of Calais.

STORY OF ‘THE JUNGLE’

Christmas Day 2001

Eurotunnel, which said it was stopping 200 refugees each night from smuggling themselves into Britain, is stormed by 500 people who break through security barriers but fail to reach England.

December 2002

Sangatte refugee camp – opened in 1999 by the Red Cross in a warehouse to shelter 600 people who had been sleeping rough around the port – is closed after the UK agreed to give temporary work permits to accept 1,250 Kurds and Afghans, while France gave residency to 400.

April 2009

French police arrest 190 at one of the small, outdoor camps that have sprung up since 2002 and the site is bulldozed.

September 2009

A raid is staged to bulldoze another camp and 276 are arrested.

July 2014

French police again raid a “jungle” camp. Those arrested are briefly detained.

October 2014

Riot police use teargas to disperse 350 refugees trying to climb aboard trucks at Calais port.

January 2015

France opens a centre at Calais to shelter 50 women and children. Around 1,000 are now sleeping rough at the new “jungle” on wasteland outside Calais. A second camp springs up in Dunkirk, further east.

June 2015

Calais council estimates 3,000 are encamped around the town - 600 of them unaccompanied children. By November the total is 6,000.

March 2016

David Cameron announces £17m is to be given to France to help deal with the migrants, including building a 1km long wall.

April 2016

A call for Britain to take in some 3,000 refugee children is rejected by MPs.

May 2016

A new Immigration Act – the seventh in eight years – includes the “Dubs amendment” saying the UK will give sanctuary to unaccompanied children from Europe. To date, no children have been admitted to the UK under Dubs.

September 2016

Lorry drivers and local traders are joined by the mayor of Calais in a protest calling for the closure of the “jungle”.

October 2016

21 children who have relatives in the UK arrive, to uproar from anti-immigration campaigners who dispute their age.