Now it’s batons and teargas in battle of Calais
A FRENCH police officer pulls out a canister of teargas and sprays it at a group of migrants who try to protect themselves under their scarves and coats.
Using an extendable baton, his colleague tries to trap a migrant as he makes a run for the security fence around the Eurotunnel terminal.
This was the scene in Calais late on Wednesday as the patience of local gendarmes finally appeared to snap in the fed-up port town. Witnesses said the flareup was like a mini football riot as police adopted a far more aggressive policy to try to stem the flow of intruders on to the railway tracks.
There were also ugly scenes last night as more than 100 migrants stormed a queue of lorries.
The men had been gathering on a grassy area next to a main road throughout the early evening. A shout went up at 8.30pm and the group ran towards the lorries.
Police who were parked nearby dragged them off only for them to try again a few minutes later.
Meanwhile, a mother and her young son were among migrants who breached security fences around the Tunnel.
The pair squeezed through a gap underneath before walking hand in hand across train tracks. The boy, aged about six, clutched his teddy bear. The mother, from Eritrea, said it was their sixth attempt to make
‘Massive invasion of migrants’
it to the UK on a train.
They had made it on board before, but were discovered before it set off, she said.
Extra police have been deployed to the area but officers admitted yesterday they are overwhelmed. There is also little they can do. Once a migrant is stopped and moved on, they often simply return to try again an hour later.
Police rarely arrest them, as processing the hundreds stopped each night would take too long. Sometimes they are driven to the border with Belgium, but often return soon afterwards to resume their cat-and-mouse games with the police.
Since Sunday, more than 3,500 migrants have tried to break through flimsy mesh security fencing. They then try to board either trains or lorries bound for the UK.
They travel from their makeshift camps on the outskirts of Calais either on foot or by bicycle. As many as 50 each day have also being taking public buses, catching one from their camp into the centre of town and then taking a second which drops them off at the entrance of the tunnel.
They pay just a couple of euros to ride the bus. Once there, they clamber through holes in the flimsy security fences or try to climb over, throwing clothes over barbed wire to protect themselves. On Wednesday night between 800 and 1,000 migrants descended on the port and 300 were arrested, police said.
Despite the increased police presence, the attempts continued throughout the day yesterday. Dozens of migrants could be seen wandering up and down the main road to the port, hiding behind bushes and road barriers. As lorries queued on the approach to the port, waiting to get on ferries, migrants tried their back doors – in full glare of the drivers and the police.
One young woman lost her temper and smashed the wing mirror of one lorry when the driver beeped his horn to alert police she was there. In the past two months, ten migrants have been killed making dangerous attempts to board moving trains and lorries. Many more have been seriously injured. On Tuesday, a Sudanese man died, crushed under the wheels of a heavy goods vehicle.
Police union spokesman Gilles Debove said that because of the size of the site – 13 miles wide and
totalling 1,600 acres – it was impossible to stop every migrant. ‘We cannot place police every ten metres. It’s unmanageable. Colleagues spend their time intercepting and repelling migrants, only for them to try their luck again an hour later.’
Eurotunnel staff are also struggling. Stephane Sauvage, general secretary of their union, has written an open letter to Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, inviting him to visit and see the conditions first-hand.
‘I am writing to inform you about the dramatic situation my colleagues face every day, being confronted by a massive invasion of migrants within the Eurotunnel site,’ he said. ‘Some of them are in great psychological distress, witnessing severe incidents with migrants. Some drivers live with the permanent anxiety of being responsible for the death of a migrant. The situation is unbearable.’
More than 5,000 migrants are thought to be living in desperate conditions in camps in Calais. They live in tents and shacks on a 40-acre stretch of industrial wasteland three miles the dock. Different nationalities keep to themselves, with an Afghan flag flying high over one tent and an Ethiopian church offering some peace away from the crowds.
Among the migrants is secondary school teacher Mahamed Ali, 26.
He arrived in Calais five days ago after fleeing the warzone in Darfur, Sudan. After crossing the desert and paying 25 euros for a small boat in Libya, he crossed the Mediterranean in a trip during which 300 migrants drowned before the survivors were taken to Italy, he said.
From there he hid in a train to Lille in France and hopes to repeat the trick to make it to the UK.