Women, children and wounded refugees will be "seriously at risk" if the Calais "Jungle" is demolished, a leading aid charity at the refugee camp has warned.
The charity Care4Calais has spoken out as French lorry drivers, farmers and ferry port agents plan a road blockade for next Monday. The lorry drivers are calling for the camp to be permanently erased.
Mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart plans to join the blockade to show "solidarity" with the lorry drivers and local residents who she says live in fear of violence from organised gangs and migrants in the camp.
Care4Calais said that demolition is "not the solution".
Earlier this year, in February, a large part of the camp was demolished and yet it is now larger than before. There are as many as 100 new arrivals every day with an estimaged 9,000 people living there. Nearly one in ten of these are children, more than half unaccompanied.
Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, said: "This is clear evidence that demolitions do not act as a deterrent. The refugees come because they have no choice - they are fleeing war and persecution. Destroying their homes achieves nothing more than making living conditions so much more inhumane."
She warned that demolition will disperse many of the migrants and refugees across northern France into temporary camps with no water or sanitation and further jeopardise those most in need of protection such as women and children.
Nearly 130 children from the camp have simply disappeared since the February demolition.
Mosely said: "We need to take collective responsibility to protect and support these vulnerable people."
Local French politician Xavier Bertrand has suggested that migrants in the camp who are seeking asylum in the UK should be allowed to do so at a "hotspot" in France, and immediately deported out of France if their claim is denied.
Care4Calais said it supports anything which would remove the need for refugees to enter the UK illegally.
