Nancy Rivard at the school.
“May Angels protect these children “

It was sobering to visit the Calais Jungle just before dismantling.  Airline Ambassadors (Nancy & Dave Rivard) joined Counter Human Trafficking Compliance Solutions (James Wiley and Seth Cooper) to see where we could help.  Concerned for 1000+ unaccompanied minors in the camp of 10,000 refugees, we offered transport  for these children to a new and stable home.

Check out this Heart of the Matter short trailer video by Worldwide Documentaries about life in the Calais Jungle before it was dismantled. heartomfilm.org

Director of School and James Wiley of CHCTS

When we arrived the children had already been moved to containers, in the central portion of the camp in preparation for their movement out officially on Tues. Oct 24, 2016.  We had a chance to see “the Jungle”, meet with NGO’s who had been helping for months, see the makeshift churches and school where they had tried to maintain hope for a new life.   The refugees,many of them from Syria, Afghanistan and more, gathered here near the “Chunnel” to England in hopes of settling there….but the UK can only take a few.  The French government organized resettlement locations throughout the country where refugees would be given a month to apply for asylum in France.   The government provided buses to transport thousands. At the last minute they did make a decision to take 200 more children.  See this LINK   Here are some pictures from our trip:

see below:

Migrants walk by excavators and Members of the demolition crew in Calais

Some of the youths slept on the ground outside one of the centres that was being used to register migrants for relocation over the past three days.

“I spent the entire night here,” one young Afghan told the AFP news agency. “I am in the queue for minors to go to England. I have family there.”

French police, meanwhile, say they are still finding migrants in shelters who do not want to leave.

Migrants wait for busses

‘End of the camp’ – By Simon Jones, BBC News, Calais

Walking through the Jungle today is a strange experience. Where once thousands of people lived, there are now just police officers and a handful of migrants trying to retrieve their belongings.

Much has been reduced to ashes. The smell of smoke after Wednesday’s fires is intense. This very much feels like the end of the camp.

At the entrance though, things are very different. Crowds gathered, made up of migrants seeking information about what they should do next and associations struggling to provide it. The world’s media watched on.

After a while, the police lost patience and decided they wanted everyone away from the camp. We were all marched down the road, away from the Jungle. More confusion followed.

The authorities, though, will no doubt be happy that in the space of four days, they have largely cleared the camp. Now the bulldozers will spend the next four days razing what’s left to the ground.

Ms Buccio, the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region, said that those who had slept in the camp overnight had travelled from other parts of France.

She had earlier declared the operation “mission accomplished”.

The 68 children found will be moved to centres elsewhere in France, she continued, but there will be no more buses to take migrants to reception centres.

The camp could not become a magnet for anyone who wants to get a place in the centre, she warned.

She said the site would be completely cleared by Monday.

The UK Home Office said French authorities were responsible for “all children in Calais during the clearance operation – including those being assessed for possible transfer to the UK”.