Operation "Nelly the Elephant" continues (goodbye to "The Jungle!")

French officials say that the clearance of the unofficial refugee camp known as "The Jungle"  continues on schedule and will be complete by Friday.

(If the operation has a title it really should be "Operation Nelly the Elephant." after the expression "Goodbye to the Jungle" in that song.)

I hope the people dismantling the camp can make sure that any unaccompanied child refugees - and I mean real children, not me posing as children - in the "Jungle" are treated with compassion. As such children were already greatly at risk as long as the camp was in existence and they were in it, I don't believe that taking action to close it was necessarily heartless or wrong.

However, we should not assume that everything will go smoothly. The French authorities admit that they think 200 people will try to stay. I hope their contingency plans if the number proves larger than that are robust.

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