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Police launched an operation early Thursday to clear roughly 3,000 refugees and migrants living in camps on the edge of the French capital. France 24’s Clovis Casali reports from the scene.

About 600 police officers escorted the camp’s residents in the pouring rain on to buses, which would take them to shelters, according to authorities. Some of those living in the camps are in France illegally, but many have been granted refugee status and have their paperwork, but are unable to find housing, Casali said.

The camps are located near the Paris ring road and living conditions in them are dire.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said she wants to work with NGOs to ease the process of finding housing for migrants and that special attention would be paid to families and minors. Employees of NGOs were at the camps Thursday watching the evacuation. Some of them said they found Hidalgo’s words hypocritical as this was the ninth evacuation since the summer of 2015 and migrants still struggle to find accommodation.