British celebrities including Jude Law and playwright Tom Stoppard were due to appear at the “Jungle” migrant camp in northern France on Sunday to draw attention to the plight of refugees facing imminent eviction.
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The Help Refugees charity said it carried out its own analysis showing there were 3,455 people living in the affected part of the Jungle who face being “evicted from their homes in the midst of winter, without sufficient alternative accommodation on offer”.
It said stones and other projectiles were being thrown by residents of the camp at lorries and security forces on a daily basis, but it also condemned far-right groups that hang around outside the Jungle to beat up migrants.
Eight people, six migrants and two solidarity demonstrators, were to be sentenced by a court in nearby Boulogne-sur-mer on Monday in relation to the boarding of the ferry Spirit of Britain during a demonstration on 23 January.
It comes as local authorities prepare to evict migrants from part of the camp in Calais known as the Jungle. Those who refuse to leave will be forcibly removed by police.
“We urge them to delay the demolition of the southern section of the camp until these needs are met… our concerns will be heard at the court in Lille”.
An estimated 4,000 migrants and refugees from countries including Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iraq are based within the Jungle.
The demolition “risks displacing migrants to other camps in the region, which is only moving the problem somewhere else”, said Vincent De Coninck, a volunteer with Caritas.
A campaign in Britain spearheaded by celebrities such as actors Jude Law and Benedict Cumberbatch has called on the British government to let children from the camp be reunited with families in Britain and take responsibility for the “humanitarian crisis” in the Jungle.
The demolition by French authorities is part of efforts to discourage migrants from trying to smuggle themselves to Britain via the ferries or the tunnel under the Channel.
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Key centres would be demolished, Law says, including a youth centre, women and children’s centre, clinic, theatre, mosques, and a church. Without those, who knows what’s going to happen to them’.
