Refugee crisis:
European Union countries are poised to restrict passportfree travel.
CALAIS, France — Mysterious armed groups are on the prowl, targeting refugees in night attacks in Calais and elsewhere in northern France, sowing fear among the displaced travelers living in squalid slums and deepening concerns the city is becoming a tinderbox of antirefugee, anti- Muslim rage that’s fueling a budding nationalist movement.
The stalkers, sometimes masked, slip through the night armed with clubs, brass knuckles, pepper spray or knives, according to accounts by refugees and groups working to provide medical and legal help.
After months of what appear to be organized attacks, police made their first arrests Thursday, taking seven men armed with iron bars and extendable batons into custody for a suspected attack on five Iraqi Kurds at LoonPlage, a port town between Calais and nearby Dunkirk. The seven faced charges of violence in a group and forming a group to commit violence, said Dunkirk prosecutor Eric Fouard. Some of the men, aged 24- 47, said they sympathized with extremeright movements in Calais identified as xenophobic, he said.
“The ideas they peddle are that there are too many migrants in France,” Fouard said by telephone, noting that one of the seven was from Brittany and another from the Paris region.
The head of a legal center set up for the refugees in the makeshift Calais camp alleged on Friday that those living there are regularly subject to police violence, as well. Marianne Humbersot told reporters she was filing 13 complaints — five for violence by militia and eight at the hands of police.
“I have a 13- year- old who had his foot broken. And 10 days before being attacked by police, he had his nose broken by racists,” Humbersot said.
Refugees — who have converged in northern France hoping to sneak into Britain — have also long complained about police brutality, accounts backed up by medical units that treat them. But attacks in recent months, accounts suggest, are organized and carried out by a militia- style group or groups, opening a new dimension of violence.
A growing security crackdown aimed at keeping thousands of refugees from reaching Britain is giving Calais a fortress- like look.
The city bristles with tall barbed wire fences, blinks with police lights and is disfigured by open spaces cleared of brush — including at the two entrances to the camp — so police can better survey.
On Friday, officials in France’s northern Pas- deCalais region said that half of the sprawling makeshift refugee camp will be evacuated. Prefect Fabienne Buccio said between 800 to 1,000 refugees will have to leave their dwellings in the camp on the edge of Calais, which now has shops, mosques, churches and schools built by refugees and volunteers.