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Within hours the camp was empty and yellow earth movers began flattening the makeshift shelters used by hundreds of migrants seeking to sneak, or be smuggled by organized gangs of traffickers, across the channel to Britain.

The camp, with huts and a mosque made of packing crates, blankets and tarpaulins, grew after the closing of a Red Cross shelter for migrants in nearby Sangatte in late 2002.

The operation on Tuesday had been loudly signalled by the authorities, and many migrants, possibly 1,000, according to news reports, slipped away before the raid.

Already it is reported, new camps are springing up along the French Channel coast.