Migrants evicted from their squalid Dunkirk camp by French police have set up a new encampment in a field next door, MailOnline can reveal.
Others have erected their tents in woods less than half a mile away from their demolished camp to keep alive their dream of finding a place on a boat to the UK.
The crowded camp on an area of abandoned industrial land and was home to 1,500 migrants until it was closed down by police at Grand-Synthe near Dunkirk.
Residents of the camp were given the option of being taken by coach to shelters across France in return for going through the French process for asylum seekers.
But most of them chose to continue living rough and refused to accept the offer out of fears that it would hinder their long term aim to reach the UK.
Migrants evicted from their squalid Dunkirk camp by French police have set up a new encampment in a field next door, MailOnline can reveal
Most of the migrants chose to continue living rough and refused to accept the offer out of fears that it would hinder their long term aim to reach the UK. Pictured: Migrants set up camp in the field next to where the Grande Synthe stood
Rubbish left in the Grande Synthe camp that was closed by police. The crowded camp on an area of abandoned industrial land and was home to 1,500 migrants until it was closed down
Small groups of migrants today returned to their old camp and broke through the fences erected by police in a half-hearted bid to seal off the entrance.
Kazkal’s son Mubin, 16, (pictured) said: ‘We are staying here because we want to come to England. We think England is so nice. You can get a job, go to school and have good weather.’
MailOnline today witnessed pitiful scenes as former camp residents rummaged through stinking piles or rubbish left behind after the mass eviction.
Migrants piled up old clothing, bedding, tents and pots and pans into supermarket trolleys which they wheeled away to their new camps.
Others chopped up pallets and other construction material from flattened makeshift shelters to get fuel for their camp fires.
Many of the migrants including families with children had only a short distance to travel to their new home in the field next door to their old camp.
They included Iraqi Kurdish mother Kazhal Rzgar, 46, and her two daughters Hadya, 22, and Hasta, seven, and her and her two sons who put up their old tent in a corner of the field.
The family have been surviving largely on food hand outs from charities since they arrived 16 days ago at the Grand-Synthe camp after landing in Italy on a migrant boat.
Her son Mubin, 16, said: ‘We are staying here because we want to come to England. We think England is so nice. You can get a job, go to school and have good weather.’
Mubin admitted that his family had paid ‘so much money’ to people smugglers to reach Europe, but he refused to say how much.
His family left his father behind five-months-ago in Darbandikhan in the Kurdish administered area of Iraq so they could head to the UK and make new lives.
Mubin said: ‘It is hard living here in the cold and rain with no toilets and no money. But when I get to England, I want to go to school and then get a job as a barber.
‘France is good, but my mum doesn’t like France. The language is so hard. English is easier and we have family in Birmingham as well.’
He said that his family faced borrowing at least 2,500 euros each to get a place on a boat across the English Channel.
Mubin added: ‘It is so dangerous on the boats, but we have to go.’
Migrants carry belongings and tents from Grande Synthe migrant camp to a field next door where they will set up camp
Hadya, a former art student at a Kurdish university, said: ‘In Iraq we have no money and no life. People are not good. Life is good in England. You have a home and everything is good.
‘When I get there, I want to be an artist or an actor in a film’.
Residents of the camp were given the option of being taken by coach to shelters across France in return for going through the French process for asylum seekers. Pictured: A man sets up a tent in the new field
A migrant carried his tent and belongings in a trolley from the Grande Synthe migrant camp after they were evicted
Accounting student Harem, 28, who has also set up his tent in the field, said: ‘We want to go to England, of course, but I don’t know how. You have to pay for a boat, but I don’t have any money.’
He admitted that life was intolerable in the old camp, saying: ‘We lived here like monkeys. The police just turned up and told everyone to leave. They destroyed my food and they took my everything.’
Harem said he had saved up for eight years working as a building labourer to pay for his passage from the Kurdish capital Irbil in Iraq.
He flew to Dubai and then on to Belarus before he got over the border to Poland and then caught a train to Germany as part of a travel package he purchased in Kurdistan.
But he said that the 1,050 euros that he had were stolen by corrupt Polish border guards in return for them letting him into the country.
He confirmed he was an economic migrant, saying he wanted to leave for the UK because he was ‘unable to get a proper job’ at home.
Accounting student Harem, 28, who has also set up his tent in the field, said: ‘We want to go to England, of course, but I don’t know how. You have to pay for a boat, but I don’t have any money’
Migrants piled up old clothing, bedding, tents and pots and pans into supermarket trolleys which they wheeled away to their new camps
A group of migrants begin erecting their tents in the field next to where the Grande Synthe camp stood before police closed it down
The abandoned debris includes scores of trollies taken from the Auchan superstore opposite the camp as well as broken up tents mixed up with rubbish including used nappies, blankets, sleeping bags, odd shoes, mattresses, bottles, cans and other food containers
Iranian migrant Mohammed, 19, said he was among around 100 people who had defied the police by spending last night back in their old camp.
He said: ‘This was a horrible place to live because of all the rubbish. Everyone was always hungry. But I am going to live in one of the new camps now.’
Police and local council officials have so far made no effort to clear up the piles of rubbish left at the old camp.
The abandoned debris includes scores of trollies taken from the Auchan superstore opposite the camp as well as broken up tents mixed up with rubbish including used nappies, blankets, sleeping bags, odd shoes, mattresses, bottles, cans and other food containers.
Most of the debris was piled in heaps around the open tarmac area where migrants had setup their hundreds of pop up tents.
Other shelters were left inside one of the old warehouse buildings on the site.
Migrants gather next to French gendarmes during the evacuation by police forces of a camp occupied by homeless migrants in Grande-Synthe, Northern France, on November 16
The camp which had been dubbed the ‘New Jungle’ in reference to the notorious Jungle camp in Calais which closed in 2017 was closed after trebling in size in recent weeks.
Officers with riot shields faced little opposition as they entered the camp which is believed to have been managed by gangs of people traffickers.
The closure was ordered French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin after he
spoke with British counterpart Priti Patel about migrant crossings in the Channel.
But his office insisted on Tuesday that the clearance was not a direct result of the call between the politicians, and had been pre-planned.