CALAIS, France (AP) - Carrying their belongings in bags and suitcases, long lines of migrants waited calmly in chilly temperatures Monday to board buses in the French port city of Calais, as authorities began evacuating the squalid camp they call home.
French authorities were beginning a complex operation to shut down the makeshift camp known as "the jungle," uprooting thousands who made treacherous journeys to escape wars, dictators or grinding poverty and dreamed of building new lives in Britain.
Closely watched by more than 1,200 police, the first of hundreds of buses began transferring migrants to reception centers around France where they can apply for asylum. The camp will then be leveled in a weeklong operation. Hotels and even castles are among the hundreds of buildings officials have been converting to migrant housing.
"This is an operation we want to be peaceful and under control. So far it is," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in Paris.
Authorities said the camp holds nearly 6,500 migrants who are seeking to get to Britain. Aid groups said there are more than 8,300.
The ramshackle camp in the sand dunes of northern France is home to migrants from Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Syria and elsewhere. After often harrowing journeys across land and treacherous seas, paying smugglers along the way, most reach a dead end in Calais, unable to find a way across the English Channel.
The harsh reality of the move hit migrants on Monday. Some were happy to leave, others were confused or in shock.
Throngs of migrants lined up at the registration center where they were separated by category, like families, unaccompanied minors or adults.
A group of Sudanese got tired of waiting and returned to their spot in the camp, bags slung over their shoulders and laughing. They said they'd try again today.
Unaccompanied minors, many with family members in Britain, were to be housed on-site in containers set up earlier this year as their files are studied in London to see if they qualify for a transfer across the English Channel. The humanitarian organization France Terre d'Asile said 1,291 unaccompanied minors live in the camp.
Fourteen migrants have died this year in the Calais area.
The unofficial camp, which sprang up 18 months ago, was previously tolerated but given almost no state help.
Aid groups, and hundreds of British volunteers, have provided basic necessities. It devolved into a slum where tensions bubbled, friendships formed and smugglers thrived.