Calais migrants ‘undaunted’
Print Edition
Migrants massed around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel said yesterday they would keep trying to sneak across to Britain, undaunted by the arrival of 120 extra riot police on the French side.
A police officer said the number of migrants trying to enter Britain eased slightly overnight compared to earlier in the week, with about 800 migrants around the site and some 300 intercepted by police. That compared to an estimated 1,500 attempts by migrants to enter the tunnel on Tuesday and 2,000 on Monday. Some were probably repeat attempts by the same people.
Some 3,000 migrants live around the tunnel entrance in a makeshift camp known as “The Jungle,” making the northern French port one of the frontlines in Europe’s wider migrant crisis alongside Italian and Greek islands used an entry point for those crossing the Mediterranean from Africa or the Middle East.
Freight and passenger traffic through the rail tunnel have been severely disrupted in past weeks as migrants desperate to enter Britain have stepped up attempts to board trucks and trains traveling from France.
“All Europe, you know that the England is good. All, everybody knows that,” a 25-year-old Sudanese migrant who gave his name as Mohammed said.
He said he wanted to join his brother in Britain.
“I want to meet family there, he’s waiting (for) me, you know,” said the young man, who traveled across the Mediterranean on a boat from Libya. “I don’t have money now, I don’t have a future. I don’t have anything. No eat, no sleep, no house.”
The humanitarian and immigration crisis, in which nine migrants have died since early June according to French media, has turned into a blame game between Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel and French and British politicians.
Eurotunnel and interior ministry officials were meeting to discuss how to cooperate better and improve infrastructure.
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