A French judge has postponed a decision on whether local authorities can legally bulldoze the southern part of the makeshift Jungle camp outside Calais.

In a crowded courtroom at the administrative tribunal in Lille on Tuesday, judge Valérie Quémener said she had “a real problem” reconciling the number of refugees and migrants the Calais authorities said were living in the camp with figures presented by aid agencies and NGOs working there.



The prefect of the Pas de Calais region, Fabienne Buccio, this month ordered the evacuation and demolition of the 7-hectare (17.5-acre) southern part of the sprawling, mud-covered shantytown, setting a deadline of 8pm on Tuesday night for the occupants to leave.



But a detailed census carried out last week by charities the L’Auberge des Migrants and Help Refugees recorded 3,455 refugees and migrants living there – more than three times the prefecture’s estimate of 800-1,000.



Annie Gavrilescu, who helped run the survey, said it had established that 445 children were living in the camp, of which 305 were unaccompanied. At least 90 of the children told the charities’ census-takers that they have relatives living in Britain, she added.



Together with six other groups working in the camp and about 200 residents, the charities filed an urgent appeal to the tribunal asking it to suspend the planned evacuation and demolition until safe and appropriate alternatives had been found for its residents, particularly unaccompanied minors, or risk breaching their fundamental rights.



People walk in the so-called Jungle camp in Calais. Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty

“This is good news – for the time being,” said Maya Konforti of L’Auberge des Migrants after the hearing. “This camp cannot be destroyed until real solutions have been found for the people who live there, including proper protection schemes for the children. Demolishing the Jungle in Calais will just create lots of little Jungles all along the coast.”



Pascale Léglise, representing the prefecture, told the tribunal there was sufficient space to house the refugees and migrants in the northern part of the camp in 125 newly installed, heated containers and in tents that would be erected further north. They were also free to go to any one of 98 refugee reception centres around France, she said.



The prefect’s decision was based on the need to improve the refugees’ squalid living conditions and reduce “concerning” levels of violence in in the camp, Léglise said, “a matter of human dignity”. In the state of emergency decreed in France after the Paris terror attacks of 13 November, she argued, policing the camp also represented an “unnecessary drain on resources”.



But the French, British and Belgian NGOs, whose hundreds of volunteers have over the past nine months helped the migrants to build shops, cafes, kitchens, cultural and youth centres, churches and a mosque as well as more than 1,600 shelters, said the camp, for all its many shortcomings, was now a significant part of the refugees’ lives.



“Nobody is arguing for the Jungle to become a permanent fixture,” their lawyer, Julie Bonnier, told the judge. “But the reality is that it has become important. You must look at it not through your eyes, but the eyes of those who live and work there.”



The prefecture had encouraged refugees to settle the site, a former rubbish tip not far from the port, last April, Bonnier said. “They were promised they would not be evicted, and told any other camp they tried to set up would be illegal. This camp is officially tolerated.”



‘Children of Calais’ pro-refugee demonstration in London this month. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Moreover, the lawyer argued, the Jungle offered “psychological support, medical care, places of worship, a school, a legal advice centre … Nobody wanted this shanty town, but it is there now and we cannot simply remove it. Shelter alone – a bed – is not enough. These are people who are already very vulnerable; we must now take the time to offer proper, serious alternatives.”



Whatever happens to the camp, its residents – mostly Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Eritreans, Sudanese and Ethiopians – mostly want to stay near Calais because Britain is their ultimate goal, either because they speak English or have relatives in the UK who will support them if they can get there.

“I want to go to England for an education,” said Merwais, 14, who left his parents, three younger brothers and sister in Jalalabad to travel for five weeks with a smuggler – paid by an uncle – across Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Germany to France.

Sitting in a warm communal tent strewn with cushions and blankets, Merwais said he had had to leave “because of the Taliban” and because his family would need another breadwinner.



Every night, he said, “I try to get on a lorry, in the car park outside Lidl [supermarket]. Then in the daytime, sometimes I try to get on a ship. We are a group, children my age, we try together. It is hard to try alone. Last night we got back at 3am.”

If the camp was demolished, he said, he would still “stay near Calais. Somewhere, I don’t know. It would be more difficult, I know. But what else can I do now? I have to keep trying to get to England.”



French gendarmes patrol the camp. Photograph: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty

Derhani, a single mother with two daughters and a son of five, was a teacher trainer in Kabul. She said she had no idea where she would go if the Jungle was ever bulldozed. “I will hope the good Lord will make the decision for me,” she said.



Her elder daughter, Sultana, 12, had travelled from the camp to the court hearing. “The judge’s decision is important because France could close the Jungle – it is their land, after all,” she said in fluent English.



“If they do I don’t know what will happen. Maybe we will go to another country. Maybe we will seek asylum in France. I don’t know. The Jungle is not a very nice home, but it is something like a home. It even feels good sometimes.”



Josie Naughton, co-founder of Help Refugees, said she hoped the judge, who is expected to make her decision within 48 hours, would show compassion, particularly for the children. “These children have post-traumatic stress issues, they are terribly vulnerable,” she said.



“There has to at least be proper assessment, proper child protection procedures. We keep knocking on doors, and keep being told it’s not anyone’s responsibility. Demolishing the camp now would be taking away the few lifelines many of these people have.”