FRENCH police began evicting almost 4,000 refugees from a camp in Paris’s Battle of Stalingrad Square yesterday.

Carrying their meagre belongings, the migrants boarded dozens of buses to temporary shelters around the Paris region, where authorities said they could apply for asylum and receive medical care.

The camp outside the Stalingrad Paris metro station was the largest of several in the city.

“I don’t know where we are going,” said Odam Husein from southern Sudan, as he waited to board a bus with a small plastic bag of clothing and papers.

Like many around him, Mr Husein said he was afraid of routine police raids, tired of sleeping on the street and confused about whether he has the right to asylum in France.

“This is the biggest operation sheltering migrants we have had to face in the last 18 months,” said Christine Gauthier of the Paris region’s housing department.

The Paris regional administration said 3,852 people were taken to 78 temporary centres in Friday’s operation.

Among them were 339 identified as “vulnerable,” including women, children and the ill, who were given special care.

The eviction of refugees from Sudan, Ethiopia and other countries included many who had fled the demolition of the Calais Jungle camp.

Two men sitting on a soggy mattress next to Mr Husein said they had come from Calais hoping for more opportunity in Paris, but had not found it.

Employees at a nearby bakery, cafe and other businesses had complained that the camps were scaring away customers, but other residents expressed concern about destitute people sleeping out in cold, wet weather amid the relative wealth of the capital.

President Francois Hollande had vowed to clear out the Paris camp, saying France could no longer accept such informal settlements.

But it was unclear whether the government could prevent new camps from springing up, especially as Europe’s refugee crisis persists.

The last Jungle residents, some 400 women with children, were removed to reception centres on Thursday.

Also on Thursday some 240 people were feared drowned when two people-traffickers’ boats sank off the Libyan coast.