Iranian migrants in the Calais camp in northern France have sewed their mouths shut in protest against the dismantling of their makeshift housing.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Clare Moseley of the Care4Calais British volunteer group said, as quoted by The San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday, that the protest was "a cry for help because they don't know what else to do."

On Tuesday, a number of migrants at the Calais camp set their shelters on fire.

The operation to dismantle the makeshift camp began on Monday after a go-ahead from a local court.

French authorities estimate that the southern part of the Calais camp, the one being dismantled, houses between 800 and 1,000 migrants. According to the estimates, it will take about a month to complete the demolition.

Individuals who have been living in the makeshift part of the camp are expected to be brought to migrant processing centers. They will be reportedly housed in nearby Calais or at other refugee centers across France.

The European Union is currently struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. EU border agency Frontex recorded more than 1.8 million illegal border crossings into the bloc in 2015.