Lines of migrants with their lives in small bags are walking to a registration center in the French port city of Calais, the first day of the mass evacuation and destruction of the filthy camp they called home.

French authorities are beginning a complex operation, unprecedented in Europe, to shut down the makeshift camp. The first of hundreds of buses were arriving on Monday to begin transferring migrants to reception centers around France, where they can apply for asylum, and level the camp in the weeklong operation.

Unaccompanied minors are being housed on-site in containers.

More than 1,200 police are surveying the operation amid rising tensions. Authorities say the camp holds nearly 6,500 migrants who are seeking to get to Britain.