Children in Calais sleep rough as camp is cleared out

Scores of unaccompanied children remain unaccounted for in an increasingly chaotic situation at the Calais refugee camp, where French authorities tried to declare that it would be completely cleared at the end of the day.

Charities working at the site estimated about 100 children remained there without adequate safeguards, and called for the dismantling of the site to be halted amid growing concern for their welfare, according to the Guardian.

Save the Children said it was “extremely concerned” about the welfare of children who had not yet been registered as fires broke out across the camp, with some residents torching their temporary homes.

Converted shipping containers set up near the camp to house unaccompanied children were full to capacity, and “hundreds” of youngsters remained outside with nowhere to go, the charity added.

Help Refugees accused Prefete Fabienne Buccio of lying about the situation of the minors in Calais

Unaccompanied children are said to have been among refugees and migrants queuing on Thursday morning outside the warehouses where authorities had carried out registrations earlier in the week. The government had reportedly aimed to completely clear the camps by the end of Wednesday, registering all residents and transporting them by bus to accommodation in other parts of France.

But on Thursday, they remained closed, with no sign of any systematic support for the remaining migrants. Help Refugees estimated that around 100 children were among those waiting.

Earlier in the day, Help Refugees said it had reports of up to 300 unaccompanied minors being turned away from the registration centres and sent back to the camp while fires were still smouldering. In a Facebook post, it also said volunteers were trying to find places for them to stay.

Help Refugees said yesterday that the authorities began to turn children away from the registration at about 12:15pm

Charities have reportedly called on the local authorities to provide emergency shelter after attempts to persuade hotels to take in minors had failed.

French authorities have said they had relocated 4,404 migrants and registered 1,200 children, who were either transferred to the UK or sent to the container site, the Guardian reported.

President Francois Hollande, facing an election six months from now, decided under local pressure to close the Jungle and relocate its inhabitants in towns and villages throughout the country pending examination of their cases.

The Calais camp, known as "the Jungle", came to symbolise Europe's difficulty in dealing with record inflows of migrants from impoverished and war-torn regions of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, many of them bent on crossing the sea from Calais to Britain.