美国有线新闻 CNN 法国开始拆除加莱难民营 数千难民弃英国梦

 

First up this Tuesday, officials in France have started clearing the way of "The Jungle". That's the nickname for a refugee camp. It's become a symbol of the challenges that the continent has faced in most serious refugee crisis since World War II. The jungles in the northern French city of Calais, it's made up of tents, makeshift shelters, campers in bad shape and thousands of migrants and refugees live there, many of them from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan.

So, why Calais? Because it's connected by an undersea tunnel to Britain and many migrants wanted to get to Britain because its economy is relatively good and its unemployment rate is low.

But European Union rules say migrants have to apply for asylum to stay in the first European country they arrive in — so, France in this case. And that nation's government says they can either stay in France or go back to their home countries. There's been some violence between the migrants who don't want to leave and police, and the relocation process could take a week.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The migrants began lining up here even before the sun had risen. The many hundreds who are determined to take up the French government's offer and try to seek asylum in one of France's regions. They go through this line into the hangar just over there, where they get to choose a region and they're put on busses and taken directly to where they're to see asylum, which is why they've come with all their worldly belongings.

This in the sense is the first part of the process — the evacuation of the camp ahead of its demolition. We caught up with one of those migrants who've arrived nice and early to ask him why he'd chosen to give up on his dream of getting one day to the United Kingdom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel better. It's good for us. So, we're living like animals, not like humans. Did you see the jungle, some places? It's very sad place, boring place. So, like animals, we live like animals in the jungle.

BELL: One of those who's decided to take up the French government's offer. In the sense, though, the much more difficult part of this process begins when the bulldozers move in and the camp itself begins to be dismantled. We've heard from many people who do not want to take up the French government's offer and who are determined instead of clinging on to their dream of making it to the U.K., and that's why the police presence here, is as great as it is, 1,200 orderly policemen and riot policemen are on standby to deal with that second part of the evacuation, the dismantling of the camp itself.