SHARE
COPY LINK

IMMIGRATION

France clears 1,800 UK-bound migrants from Dunkirk camp

French police cleared 1,800 migrants from a makeshift camp near Dunkirk on Tuesday, hoping to deter people-traffickers seeking to smuggle them across the Channel to Britain.

France clears 1,800 UK-bound migrants from Dunkirk camp
Photos: AFP

Hundreds of police flooded the Grande-Synthe camp at dawn to expel the migrants, most of them Iraqi Kurds, who were loaded onto dozens of buses bound for shelters.

While the infamous “Jungle” camp in nearby Calais was razed in 2016, migrants continue to head to the coast hoping to stow away on trucks travelling to Britain.

Refugees and others seeking a better life have long used the wooded, lakeside area near Dunkirk as a jumping-off point for attempted crossings, and this was the sixth such operation in five months.

The migrants, including many families, “will be cared for and given shelter in emergency accommodation throughout the Hauts-de-Seine region and other regions nearby,” local authorities said in a statement.

The operation was intended “to stop human trafficking in these camps where smuggling rings are active,” they added.

Some migrants were aware of the impending swoop and left the camp ahead of the operation — “but tomorrow, many will be back,” predicted Claude Lenoir of Salam, an aid group working with migrants.

“They need to be given temporary housing, but we know full well that some migrants will return, as is always the case,” said Akim Toualbia, deputy head of Drop, another migrants' aid group.

The migrants were living in the camp with no access to showers or toilets as the winter chill begins to set in, he added.

Newly appointed Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who was due to visit later Tuesday, has vowed to take a tough stance on illegal immigration.

France received a record 100,000 asylum requests in 2017, up 17 percent from the year before.

Police had clashed overnight with migrants who set up roadblocks near the port of Calais, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) west, though officials said there were no casualties.

Migrants have repeatedly set up roadblocks at night in an attempt to slow trucks heading onto ferries bound for Britain, hoping to make it easier to slip aboard.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

SHOW COMMENTS