200 children leave Calais camp for the UK

By Fatih Erel

GENEVA (AA) – A total of 200 unaccompanied children have left France's Calais camp for the U.K. to reunite with their relatives, the UN Refugee Agency said Tuesday.

"The informal camp for refugees and migrants in Calais known as ‘the Jungle’ is not an environment fit for human habitation.

“The UNHCR has long recommended its closure and its replacement by proper accommodation for asylum seekers and migrants," William Spindler, the agency’s spokesman said in a press conference in Geneva.

French authorities transferred about 2,500 people voluntarily out of Calais on Monday, the agency said.

"Measures, including family tracing, must be taken to reunite children with relatives in Europe, when determined in the best interests of the child, such as the 200 unaccompanied children that have left Calais for the United Kingdom," Spindler said.

Asylum seekers in the camp were hoping to cross the English Channel and reach the U.K., but the British government said it was funding a new four-meter-high barrier that it hoped would stop them from trying.

Construction began last month on the concrete wall that will extend for a single kilometer alongside the motorway to the Calais port where ferries carrying trucks depart day and night for the U.K.

French President Francois Hollande had pledged to demolish the camp, which had been home to thousands of migrants, before the end of 2016.