BLOODY BATTLE OF CALAIS (Just when you thought it had all gone away)
Chilling scenes at the French border as five are shot in open warfare between rival migrant gangs
WHEN the infamous ‘Jungle’ camp was dismantled, many hoped the chaos that had plagued Calais would be over for good.
But now migrants are returning to the city in their hundreds, leading to what officials have described as the worst violence ever seen in the French port.
Five migrants were shot in one day amid three clashes involving people smugglers. Gunshots rang out as hundreds of Eritrean asylum seekers clashed with Afghans hoping to reach the UK.
Gangs of young men clutched makeshift weapons – including iron bars, stones and planks of wood – as they marched the streets of Calais, where almost 1,000 migrants have converged since the Jungle was torn down in 2016.
France’s interior minister Gerard Collomb said: ‘This is a level of violence that hasn’t been seen before. We have reached an escalation of violence that has become unbearable for people from Calais and migrants.’
He said the unprecedented violence was being instigated by gangs attempting to control the lucrative trade in smuggling migrants to Britain on trucks, trains and ferries.
Speaking outside a police station near the scene of the clashes, he said: ‘There will be people here at their wits’ ends faced with this increasingly violent presence among a certain number of migrants, who it is plain to see are organised in gangs. I have come here to reaffirm our mobilisation against the smugglers who feed daily violence and brawls.’
Armed people smugglers, including a 37-year- old Afghan, were being hunted by police last night for causing the violence that put 22 migrants in hospital, including five with gunshot wounds. Four Eritrean teenagers, who were shot in the neck, chest, abdomen and spine, were in a critical condition.
Confrontations occur regularly between groups of different nationalities in Calais, but tensions have spiralled in recent weeks. In November, five were shot in a fight between rival Afghan groups.
The violence comes two weeks after President Emmanuel Macron visited Calais with a message of zero tolerance on migrants setting up camps like the Jungle.
He later travelled to Britain, where Theresa May agreed to pay an extra £45million for security fencing, carbon dioxide detectors, CCTV cameras, heartbeat monitors and scanners to find stowaways in Calais.
Dover MP Charlie Elphicke said: ‘We cannot have a return to the Calais chaos which made life hell for tourists and truckers. It is shocking that guns are being used in violent brawls just 22 miles across the English Channel.
‘President Macron urgently needs to get a grip. The French need to get these migrants out of Calais and help them back to their home nations – and arrest the ruthless people traffickers causing such mayhem and misery.’
The riot started at around 3.30pm on Thursday, close to the Central Hospital in Calais, when about 100 Eritreans and 30 Afghans started fighting in a charity food queue.
An armed Afghan smuggler is said to have blasted four teenage Eritreans with a shotgun.
At 4pm, a second brawl took place at an industrial estate about three miles away, in the suburb of Marck, when up to 200 Eritreans armed with iron rods and sticks clashed with about 20 Afghans.
Two hours later further violence erupted at another industrial estate in an area of Calais near the site of the old Jungle. As the situation deteriorated around the town, a fifth Eritrean was shot by a suspected smuggler.
At least three migrants were taken to an emergency ward in Lille for immediate surgery.
The rest of those with gunshot wounds, and others with injuries caused by clubs and knifes, were taken to the hospital in Calais.
It remains unclear who had carried out the shooting. Although people smugglers occasionally have pistols, they are also carried by some of the migrants themselves.
The rioting went on until around 6pm. Police used tear gas and baton charges to restore order. Two officers were injured during
‘Mayhem and misery’
the clashes and security reinforcements were deployed. There were no reports of incidents during the night.
Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart reacted with fury to the clashes, saying such violence ‘was absolutely unacceptable’.
‘The serious incidents multiplied from this afternoon,’ she said. ‘ This was fighting between migrants, these were turf wars.’
She added: ‘There are more and more guns, iron bars and other weapons being used.
‘We have to clear the area. This is a security issue. The public can’t carry on accepting this situation.’
Tensions have been running high in Calais since the Jungle was destroyed. More than 1,130 French security forces have been posted in
‘Absolutely unacceptable’
Calais to keep migrants out of the port and Eurotunnel and to stop them from setting up camps.
The notorious Jungle, once home to about 10,000, was demolished in October 2016, with some 8,000 men, women and children relocated to other parts of France – but hundreds more migrants have since descended on the city.
Calais officially became a migrant-free zone afterwards, but now an estimated 800have returned. Gangs now frequently fight over smuggling routes to Britain, and sites where they can pitch their tents while waiting to get to the UK.
People smugglers make huge profits charging as much as £2,200 to get migrants on to trucks heading for Britain, via ferries or the Channel Tunnel.