Migrants returning to Calais 'Jungle' as most fires are tamed

Migrants have started moving back into the "Jungle", hours after French authorities announced they had finished clearing out the Calais camp.

Thousands of migrants were evacuated as multiple large blazes raged across the sprawling camp in northern France.

By midday, regional prefect Fabienne Buccio had said operations to clear the camp, which began on Monday, had been completed days earlier than planned.

"There are no more migrants in the camp," she told the Associated Press news agency.

"Our mission has been fulfilled."

Authorities, however, told the migrants they could go back into the camp after the fires were put out to recover what was left of their belongings.

"Jungle's not dead! Jungle's not dead!" said a young Afghan migrant making his way back into the camp.

Authorities said they would stop processing people by the end of the day.

By early afternoon firefighters and volunteers had largely brought the fires under control, which burned for hours and left skeleton-like hulks on either side of the main alley through the camp.

Dozens of large blazes were ripping through what had been until recently the homes of thousands of migrants and refugees at the sprawling French camp.

A plume of black smoke billowed over the camp and gas canisters exploded as firefighters battled the flames in shelters, tents and small shops.

Four migrants have been arrested in connection with starting the blazes, said Calais police commissioner Patrick Visser-Bourdon, who is in charge of the dismantling operation.

Authorities have blamed the departing migrants, with Ms Buccio saying many of them "have a tradition" of burning their shelters before leaving.

As volunteers helped the French firefighters tackle the blaze, an unconfirmed number of children remained at the camp, according to the charity Save The Children.

Mr Visser-Bourdon had told Sky News all minors with links to the UK had been transferred from the camp - but a number of charities said this was not true.

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The Calais police chief also said the full demolition of the camp would take place within a week once everyone was out.

Nearly 5,600 adults and children have been resettled since the start of the operation to pull down the camp, according to a statement from the interior minister's office.

Thousands have been sent to a network of reception centres around France and 234 minors transferred to Britain, the interior ministry said.

Authorities said some 6,300 people fleeing war and poverty outside Europe had been housed at Calais, but aid groups said it was actually more than 8,000.

Registered unaccompanied minors, most of them male teenagers, are housed in a semi-permanent shipping container area next to the "Jungle" camp while they wait for French and British asylum experts to process them.

A total of 1,200 minors have been registered and there are now in the container camp.

The concern is that the container camp, known as the CAP, is not secure and has been surrounded through Wednesday by the burning "Jungle".

By mid afternoon, the queue of adults and those claiming to be under 18 stretched several hundred metres from the registration centre.

However, charities say that the French authorities have temporarily stopped registering minors.