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Migrants set shelters on fire as Calais “Jungle” camp clearance ends

CALAIS, France -- French officials said Wednesday that France had completed its mission to clear out the migrant camp known as “the Jungle.” Firefighters doused several dozen fires set by migrants as they left the makeshift camp near the northern French city of Calais earlier Wednesday morning.

Steve Barbet, spokesman for the regional prefecture, said that one migrant was slightly injured and taken to the Calais hospital. About 100 migrants were evacuated overnight.

Thousands more migrants rescued from the Mediterranean 01:45

Prefect Fabienne Buccio had said Tuesday night that migrants “have a tradition” of burning their shelters before leaving.

Gas canisters popped as they exploded in the heat. One aid group’s truck burst into flames.

Migrants stood and watched. Some laughed.

“The operation will continue today to remove the empty shelters and to avoid them being set fire to again,” a local government spokesman told France Info radio Wednesday morning, according to Reuters.

After two full days of a weeklong operation, French authorities had already transported thousands of migrants to reception centers around France.

The camp used to be a temporary home to 6,300 migrants, according to authorities, though some aid groups had counted more than 8,000 people living there. People fleeing war and poverty in their own countries congregated at Calais over the past few years because it was the main port of entry to Britain from France.

But as a line of formed outside a processing center Wednesday morning, some migrants refused to accept that their goal of reaching Britain might no longer be possible.

“We don’t care about problems that are to come after this,” Hamid, a 30-year-old migrant from Afghanistan, told Reuters. “We did it because we don’t want to stay in France. We want to go to England and England only. It doesn’t matter if I go to jail here.”

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