Chilling scenes French borderfive shot
The bloody battle of Calais… just when you thought it had 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.
Exodus from Eritrea
Eritreans have been fleeing their homeland in record numbers. Astonishingly for a country of fewer than 5million, the East African nation is one of the key contributors to the European migrant crisis.
The United Nations has estimated as many as 5,000 are fleeing the country every month.
They are escaping the repressive regime of President Isaias Afwerki, a freedom fighter turned dictator who was described as ‘cruel and defiant’ in leaked US diplomatic cables. He has clung on to power since leading the nation to independence from Ethiopia in 1991 through the use of secret police, extrajudicial killings and censorship.
Reports suggest only 1 per cent of Eritreans have access to the internet, while job prospects are poor and the cost of living high.
Eritrea denounces those fleeing as ‘economic migrants’, while border guards allegedly shoot dead those trying to get away.
Some 34,000 Eritreans claimed asylum in Europe in 2016. The true number who reached the continent could be even higher.
Hundreds still flocking to port
Despite the demolition of the sprawling ‘Jungle’, migrants continue to descend on Calais.
The port remains a magnet for those determined to reach the UK, with human traffickers offering to sneak people on to trucks crossing the Channel by ferry or through the tunnel – for a charge of thousands of pounds.
Eighteen months ago more than 9,000 migrants were living in the makeshift Jungle camp close to the border, using it as a springboard for illegal UK entry. At the height of the crisis migrants were caught trying to sneak into Britain at a rate of one every six minutes – with 84,088 detentions at our borders last year. Most were caught at Calais – effectively Britain’s frontier on foreign soil.
The shanty town was demolished in October 2016, but French authorities have reported a growing build-up of foreign nationals who are hoping to reach Britain. Some are fleeing humanitarian disasters, but others are seeking to reach the UK for purely economic reasons. Local charities put the number of migrants living in Calais at around 800, while the authorities say there are between 550 and 600. Mainly young African and Afghan men, they hide from the police in camps in the woods, emerging at night to board passing trucks.
President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to stop Calais being a ‘back door to Britain’ – as long we stump up more cash. The UK has spent £200million over the past four years on security at Calais.
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