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Paris authorities began an operation early on Friday to clear more than 3 000 people from a makeshift refugee camp in the northeast of the French capital.
The operation to shut the sprawling tent encampment, near the Canal Saint-Martin under an overhead metro bridge in the Stalingrad district, was proceeding peacefully.
The people being forced to leave were mainly from Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan. Many of them had arrived in the capital from Calais after police dismantled the infamous “Jungle” camp there last week.
“You can also see here very young children, maybe two to three years old, and plenty of babies among the crowds, and mothers sitting on the pavement,” said Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris.
“These refugees have been sleeping in extremely rough conditions. It’s very cold, the winter is closing in . . . there is some relief perhaps that at least they will have somewhere warm to sleep this evening.”
Officials gathered several hundred males shortly before 6AM behind a police line in a part of the camp housing Afghans.
Buses were due to take them during the morning to accommodation centres around the greater Paris region of Ile-de-France. “We’ve heard from refugees who’ve said they are moved from shelter to shelter, often with very little information,” said Butler. “We’ve even spoken to a family that ended up back on the streets because they didn’t know where to go, and whether or not they can apply for asylum.” — AFP
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