Charities are warning that they no longer have enough donated food or money to feed the rapidly growing population of refugees in the camp in Calais, with supplies running out on a daily basis and migrants reporting they are going hungry.

“A few months ago, there would be a maximum of 70 people in the lines; now we have 500 people queuing. We started running out of food about three weeks ago,” said Marie Eisendick, who has helped run the Refugee Community Kitchen since the beginning of the year.

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It was no longer possible to provide a hot meal for everyone who wanted one, and hungry people had to be turned away regularly, she added, describing the absence of better assistance from the UK and French authorities as “scandalous”. “We have the same resources and staff that we had three months ago, but there are thousands more people to feed.”

Latest census figures show a 30% increase in the camp’s population in a month, bringing the total number to more than 9,100. About 70 new people arrive every day, with large numbers coming from Sudan and Afghanistan. Volunteers say they do not have enough tents and blankets to hand out to new arrivals.

The fresh crisis came as France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the camp would be gradually dismantled and accommodation would be created for thousands elsewhere in the country “to unblock Calais”.

Longer lines are visible at all four distribution points, run by different charities in the camp. The long wait for food has led to rising tension in the queues, with arguments breaking out over queue jumping. “People are very worried they will not get any food. People tell us that they are hungry,” Eisendick said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marie Eisendick volunteers in the Refugee Community Kitchen. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian

By 11.30am, a distribution caravan dispensing tents and blankets had no more supplies, and new arrivals were turned away. “We only have 30 blankets to hand out a day. We can’t help any more people. We’d love to be able to help, but it’s finished,” a volunteer shouted, attempting to disperse a crowd of disappointed arrivals.

The struggle to feed the camp is partly the result of the absence of an official international aid agency overseeing the worsening conditions, which has forced smaller volunteer-run agencies to step in. These organisations rely on donations, which fluctuate wildly according to public awareness of the situation. Reports that the French authorities had bulldozed most of the camp in the spring led to a rapid fall in donations, but the number of refugees who have returned to live in tents and shacks has risen steadily, and 4,000 more people now live there than at the start of the year.

“There is a sense that the refugee crisis is over in Calais, when it’s actually the reverse,” Eisendick said. “It angers me that a really small organisation like ours is carrying the weight of this problem without the support of the French or the British government, or bigger aid organisations. People aren’t starving here, but they are hungry because there isn’t enough food. That’s a scandalous situation to have in France.”

Calais Kitchens, another organisation that distributes emergency food parcels to residents, has had to reduce the size of rations in the past month to balance growing demand against dwindling resources. “There is some donor fatigue. We no longer have the money to buy the food we need to distribute,” Fee Gerlach, a volunteer, said. “In the last two weeks, I’ve had conversations with people about hunger; in the seven months I’ve been here that hasn’t happened before.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Inside Calais Kitchens, which is providing bags and meals for the ever-expanding population in the Calais camp. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian

Increasing numbers of refugees are choosing to claim asylum in France, rather than continue to wait in limbo in the camp, risking their lives attempting to travel illegally on lorries to the UK. Volunteers are actively promoting France as an attractive destination and are at pains to persuade people that France is not all like Calais (a place of mud and open sewers, with no electricity or running water), but a better place, with sanitation and houses with roofs.

“I can’t speak French, I don’t think they like refugees here, but I have applied to stay here. Trying to get to England is very difficult,” a 19-year-old man from Afghanistan, who has been in the camp for six months, said as he queued to see a camp volunteer nurse about a chest infection. The asylum application process was slow, and so he remains stuck in the camp waiting for a decision.

Much of his life is punctuated by queuing. Waiting in line for clothes distribution can take more than three hours now that the camp is so full. “It is more difficult with food now. You can stand for hours waiting; it makes people want to fight,” he said.

Some elements of camp life are easier in the summer. A concerted campaign to remove rubbish has alleviated a rat infestation. The paths that run through the camp are no longer waterlogged, but attempts to move people from flimsy donated camping tents into sturdier wooden huts have been frustrated by a ban on building materials. Although refugees have attempted to improve tents by insulating them with extra layers of plastic and tarpaulin as well as knitted blankets, everyone knows they will offer scant protection once the cold weather returns.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A queue for food at the overcrowded Calais refugee camp. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, and Cazeneuve this week said they recognised the “particularly difficult humanitarian situation” in Calais and resolved to continue working together to “diminish the migratory pressure”, but among refugees there is little expectation of assistance from either government. With dark humour, someone has nailed up a sign naming the camp’s main pathway “Theresa May Street, City of Calais”.

The worsening situation in Calais represents a tiny aspect of the overall refugee crisis in Europe, with millions of people displaced from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. In the first quarter of this year, Germany received more than 60% of applications for asylum, France 6% and the UK only 4% of the European total.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Refugees have named one of the pathways Theresa May Street. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian

But residents in Calais are increasingly hostile to the growing number of desperate, impoverished people, living on a landfill site at the edge of the town. Calais-based businesses and lorry drivers have scheduled a protest outside the town on Monday, planning to mount road blocks and form a human chain made up of residents, demanding that the local authorities announce a date when the camp will be demolished.

“No one is interested in our backgrounds and who we are. They don’t treat us like human beings. This is the worst camp in Europe,” a man from Syria said. The man, who has been in Calais for almost a year asked not to be named and apologised for not wanting to talk further about his situation. “It is my life and my pain.” His wife and two sons are still in Syria. Charity workers who know him note that his mental state has deteriorated as his optimism about getting to the UK has diminished.

Annie Gavrilescu, who coordinates the monthly census conducted by Help Refugees, said she was concerned that there was no sign of a government plan to help the camp’s resident. “We have twice as many people in half the amount of space we had at the start of the year,” she said, “despite four rounds of evictions and countless fires. Extreme pressure from the inside of the camp and from the authorities outside has led to increased tension. We have exhausted the pool of people in the UK and elsewhere who can donate and there is still no provision for the future of these people.”

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How you can help

Money, donations and volunteers are needed at the camp at Calais, but certain supplies are needed more than others – key items required are listed here.

• Donate money and food to Calais Kitchens, which delivers food packages to the camp, and to Refugee Community Kitchen, which provides hot food daily

• Help fund the work of Help Refugee, which has provided food and clothes for the camp for the past year, or volunteer in its Calais warehouse. (Do keep trying as the website may be slow at times.) If you are planning to bring donations to the camp, email calaisdonations@gmail.com for advice on what to bring and how to pack donations.

• Support the campaigning work of Citizens UK, lobbying to bring unaccompanied refugee children to the UK.

• Donate to the Women’s and Children’s bus, supporting the smaller number of families with young children in the camp, and helping work with the smallest unaccompanied children, some as young as eight.

• Volunteer to collect litter and help clean the camp, which is vital to stop rat infestations.