The ongoing demolition of the so-called ‘Jungle’ migrant camp in Calais by French authorities is part “a cowardly war on people who cannot defend themselves and who have nothing to lose but their hope and dignity”, according to a Maltese activist who travelled to the camp last year.

“Activist friends speak of armed police sharing jokes as they tore down tent doors, chased people off the roofs of the wooden huts, urinated on people’s belongings, and beat a pregnant woman who refused to leave her refuge,” Antoine Cassar, who has campaigned for migrant issues for years through the Passaport project, told the Times of Malta yesterday

“The danger is the border, not the people who need to cross it,” Mr Cassar said. “This is no temporary ‘migration crisis’, nor a problem that can be effaced by tear gas. The real crisis in the conscience of governments at the local, national and EU levels.”

Demolition teams began pulling down tents and makeshift shelters in the sprawling migrants’ camp in Calais on Monday, observed by hundreds of riot police. Tensions escalated further yesterday as officers fired tear gas while confronting migrants who staged sit-in protests and set fire to makeshift shelters in an attempt to stop the mass eviction.

Calais has lived with migrants in its midst for years, but the current camp on the city’s edge grew around a day centre opened last April by the state. It is currently home to some 4,000 migrants – down from 6,000 in December – most waiting for months for an opportunity to cross to Britain.

More than 20 people, including a nine-year-old girl, died last year at the camp or attempting the dangerous crossing, some suffocated in the backs of trucks, others run over attempting to walk the Channel Tunnel and some during a desperate attempt to swim the 33 kilometres to Dover.

Authorities in Calais, eager to establish the town as a tourist destination, have taken a hard-line approach to the crisis before, with three camps housing hundreds of migrants already bulldozed by riot police last May.

A French CRS riot policeman secures the area as a workman tears down a makeshift shelter in the Jungle.

The start of the latest demolition works, which are likely to drag on for weeks, came four days after a court ruled that shelters could come down – but not common areas like houses of worship, a school, a women’s centre and a library, many of them built with the help of French and British volunteers appalled by conditions in the makeshift camp.

Humanitarian groups and migrants who had contested the state decision to level the most populous sector of the camp filed an appeal against the ruling on Friday with the Council of State, but any decision is likely to take weeks or months, long after the camp is gone.

French authorities are offering to relocate uprooted migrants into heated containers installed last month nearby, or at centres around France where they can decide whether to apply for asylum. Many have resisted the move, fearing it will hurt their chances of reaching Britain, and some migrant advocates say there is not enough space in the new area.

Migrant rights organisations generally agree that the Jungle camp must eventually go. However, they have strongly objected to the approach the French authorities have taken in this latest encounter, which they consider heavy-handed and inhumane.