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French police used tear gas and water cannon on Saturday afternoon against refugees and activists who attempted to hold a protest against the demolition of "Jungle" camp in Calais, saying that 400 unaccompanied children risked depression or suicide.
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The three-hour confrontation—the worst since February—followed confirmation last week by French President Francois Hollande that the site will be bulldozed by winter.
Local authorities had decided to ban Saturday's demonstration, which was organized by the International Coalition for Undocumented Immigrants and Migrants. However on Saturday, about 200 protestors maintained the peaceful gathering on the outskirts of the camp.
Police then sought to push the protestors back inside the camp when refugees and activists, many of them British, began throwing stones and other objects at police.
Riot police responded firing 700 tear gas grenades as well as using a water cannon to disperse the protesters, police union official Gilles Debove said. Some 200 additional police were sent to the area, officials added, and the situation had calmed down by early evening.
An AFP photographer said he was slightly injured.
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Between 7,000 and 10,000 migrants are currently living in the migrant camp, a launch-pad for people's desperate attempts to stow away on ferries heading across the channel to England.
Among them, about 1,000 of unaccompanied minors are in serious danger of psychological collapse, warned various charities and volunteers after Hollande announced the camp will be destroyed.
They reported many incidents of child refugees threatening to harm themselves if the camp was destroyed, with others already taking action.
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“Some are burning themselves with cigarettes, one arm, then the other,” said Abdul Afzali, from the Refugee Youth Service, according to the Guardian. “Others have told me that they want to jump in front of a lorry and give up. Unfortunately, most have developed serious depression.”
On Friday, the Unicef urged the British government to speed up the transfer of unaccompanied child refugees coming from Calais, as they say at least 400 of them would be entitled to be resettled with their families in UK.
The British government has not granted any asylum request yet, despite promising to resettle thousands of them from North Africa and Middle East in April.
When the French government bulldozed the southern half of the camp in the end of February, hundreds of children went missing, according to Unicef.
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