Police try to quell Calais turf wars
Police reinforcements have been sent to Calais to stop turf wars between people smugglers and growing violence among migrants trying to reach Britain.
Riot police were called in after 22 migrants were injured in clashes between Afghans and Eritreans, the biggest groups of migrants there. Five were shot, and four have life-threatening injuries.
Although Calais is used to clashes between migrants and police, Gerard Collomb, the French interior minister, said the battles that began on Friday were of ‘‘exceptional gravity’’.
Fighting broke out in at least five places. The violence started at a food distribution point, continued at a truck park used by traffickers, and spread to an area near the town’s hospital.
Migrants were armed with knives, metal bars, sticks and stones. At least one man – a 37-year-old Afghan, according to police – had a pistol. Detectives said he was almost certainly one of the people smugglers who are charging up to €4000 (NZ$6800) to hide migrants in trucks heading to Britain.
Francois Guennoc of L’Auberge des Migrants, a charity based in Calais, said there had been a ‘‘settling of scores’’ between gangs trying to control sites used by the trucks. ‘‘It is a question of carving up service stations and lorry parks.’’
Natacha Bouchart, the mayor of Calais, said: ‘‘Where meals are distributed, Eritreans and Afghans mark their territory and wage war with each other and fight violently.’’
The Afghans tend to have more money, and their trafficking gangs flourish. The gangs often seek to push Eritreans, who are mostly penniless, out of the prime truck parks.
Charities estimate that there are about 900 migrants in Calais, with 200 having arrived since British Prime Minister Theresa May promised, at a Franco-British summit last month, to fast-track asylum claims from those at the port. About 50 per cent of new arrivals say they are under 18, and 30 per cent are women.
Christian Salome, the chairman of L’Auberge des Migrants, said many thought that May was promising to take them all. ‘‘They keep shouting at the volunteer charity workers, ‘Where are the buses for England? Have you hidden them?’.’’
Collomb said he had ordered two riot police units, each consisting of about 70 officers, to Calais. A total of 1130 police officers are already in the town. He blamed charities for encouraging migrants to stay in Calais and keep trying to reach Britain instead of making asylum claims in France.
‘‘We have reached an escalation of violence that has become unbearable for both those from Calais and migrants,’’ he said.
Calais is a symbol of France’s struggle to manage Europe’s ongoing migrant crisis. Migrants have long arrived in the port city in hopes of reaching Britain, a mere 32 kilometres away across the English Channel.
The government of President Emmanuel Macron has sought to address the migrant situation in Calais and elsewhere by prioritising asylum seekers over economic migrants. But prominent critics – including some of Macron’s political allies – have accused the young president of presiding over police brutality and a policy of exclusion.
In January, Macron responded to some of these critiques, notably a scathing report published by Human Rights Watch in July 2017. But this week’s violence is likely to exacerbate existing tensions between migrants and police.
Aid organisations in Calais said that violent outbreaks would recur if the French government did not improve conditions for migrants stuck in legal limbo.
‘‘They don’t have access to legal assistance or even sleeping bags. The living conditions are terrible. Everyone is exhausted,’’ said Loan Torondel, a field manager for L’Auberge des Migrants. ‘‘And then you have the smugglers trying to make money on people’s misery.’’
At the same time as he announced increased security, Collomb also noted that meal distribution would be provided by the state within 15 days ‘‘to prevent such incidents from occurring’’.