From the Times:
Politicians in northern France are calling for police reinforcements as migrants set up small camps along the coast in the hope of reaching the UK from ports other than Calais.
The calls come amid evidence that migrants are managing to cross the Channel from places such as Cherbourg and Dieppe in France, Zeebrugge in Belgium and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
François Guennoc, who works for l’Auberge des Migrants, a Calais-based charity, said that migrants were paying people smugglers up to €8,000 (£6,184) each to take them to ports that were less well protected than Calais.
As evidence to back his claims, he cited the camp in Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk, where the numbers have fallen from 2,500 in January to about 700. Mr Guennoc said that the drop could be explained by the efficiency of smuggling networks in getting migrants to the UK.
In Dieppe, the migration crisis is out of control, according to Hervé Morin, who chairs both the Normandy regional council and the Dieppe port authority, and Pascal Martin, chairman of the Seine-Maritime department council.
In a joint letter this week, they said: “The growing number of migrants determined to board ferries illegally is proving more and more difficult for security guards and staff at DFDS [which operates ferries between Dieppe and Newhaven] and at the port to handle, particularly at night.”
They urged a bigger police deployment to put an end to the “lack of public security [which is] engendering a permanent climate of violence and fear”.
Read more from Adam Sage in the Times here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.