Migrants try to rush tunnel to England
Thousands attempt the crossing, a few have made it, but nine have died since June
CALAIS, France — French officials deployed more than 100 riot police to Calais on Wednesday to bolster security as hundreds of migrants tried yet again to rush the railway tunnel leading to England — an increasingly common occurrence with sometimes fatal consequences.
There were wildly conflicting totals of people involved in Wednesday’s rush, ranging from 150 to as many as 1,200. But French authorities and Eurotunnel, the company that operates the tunnel, agreed there had been about 2,000 attempts on each of two successive nights.
British Home Secretary Theresa May said “a number” of migrants made it through overnight.
Attempts have been increasing exponentially as has the sense of crisis in recent weeks, spurred by new barriers around the Eurotunnel site, lack of access to the Calais port, labour strife that turned the rails into protest sites for striking workers, and an influx of desperate migrants.
“This exceptional migrant situation has dramatic human consequences,” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said. “Calais is a mirror of conflicts tearing up regions of the world.”
The 50-kilometre Channel Tunnel, often referred to as the Chunnel, is used by passenger trains and freight services to connect France and Britain.
“Smugglers sell migrants the notion that Britain is the only El Dorado for a better life,” said Emmanuel Agrius, the deputy mayor of Calais.
One migrant was crushed to death and another was critically injured after being electrocuted in Paris amid tens of thousands of attempts to breach security.
Migrants pressing northward toward both France and England are fleeing war, dictatorship and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. They tend to spend as little time as possible in their southern European landing spots, such as Italy, where two ships unloaded on Wednesday, one carrying 435 passengers and 14 bodies and another with 692 migrants.
Many of the migrants disembarking in Italy on Wednesday were families from Syria, said Giovanna De Benedetto, spokeswoman for Save the Children in the port of Messina.
British officials have increasingly sounded the alarm over a potential influx of foreigners. French officials, meanwhile, are concerned about the roughly 3,000 migrants in encampments called “the jungle” by the inhabitants of the largely lawless sites scattered haphazardly in the area.
It’s not clear how many ever reach Britain, although at least a few succeeded this week by stowing aboard trains to make the 35-minute trip.
Those caught on the French side are generally immediately freed to return to the camps and try again. Those caught on the British side may be detained while their applications for asylum are considered. But many stay hidden aboard trucks as they roll off the trains until they stop for fuel, then hop off and vanish.
Eurotunnel defended its efforts, saying Wednesday it had blocked more than 37,000 attempts since January. Nine people have died trying since June, including a man believed to be a Sudanese in his mid-20s, who was crushed by a truck as he tried to stow away Wednesday.
Eurotunnel called for help from both the French and British governments.
“It’s become a phenomenon which is beyond our means,” spokesman John Keefe said. “We’re just a small transport company operating in a little corner of Europe.”
Keefe said attacks on the fences are organized.
“This is very clearly criminal gangs or human traffickers who co-ordinate attacks on the fences,” he said.
The events Wednesday night caused mayhem for truckers on both sides of the Channel. Cargo trucks were backed up in Calais for several kilometres. British police, meanwhile, turned parts of a highway near the British end of the tunnel into a giant parking lot.
May, the home secretary, said Britain is pressing for a bigger fence around the Calais railhead, and said Britain and France would work together to return people to their home countries and crack down on smugglers.
Ultimately, May added, “the answer to this problem is to ensure we are reducing the number of migrants who are trying to come from Africa across into Europe, that we break that link between making that dangerous journey, as it often is for people, and coming to settle in Europe.”