Three young illegal migrants were arrested in Paris on Sunday evening after they allegedly beat and robbed several transgender prostitutes in the Bois de Boulogne park.
The three men, said to all be in their 20s, claimed to all be from Egypt, though lacked any identification papers, and told police that they were homeless, living on the streets of the French capital, Le Parisien reports.
Police say they received a report about attacks on the transgender prostitutes at around 10:45 pm with claims that the men had beaten the prostitutes with sticks before robbing them.
Shortly after receiving the call, officers were able to track down the three Egyptian migrants finding one of them to be in possession of a wireless speaker along with a pair of high heels while the other two men were found with weapons on them.
The incident comes less than a year after the murder of South American transgender prostitute Vanesa Campos who was shot and killed by a group of migrants who were also attacking and robbing prostitutes along with their clients in the Bois de Boulogne area.
At least nine illegal migrants were arrested in connection with the case with members of the gang, aged 15 to 30, being known under several different aliases.
Diane Leriche, the co-chairman of d’Acceptess-Transgenre, a group which supports the transgender prostitutes, commented on the situation at the park saying, “Nothing has changed in the Bois de Boulogne since the death of Vanessa. There are always gangs of men terrorising them. It’s part of their daily lives.”
The assaults also follow a number of attacks not just on transgendered people but on homosexuals in Paris, as well. Last year, a lesbian couple was attacked by several young men on the city’s public transport and later that year the city saw three homophobic attacks occur within the span of only three days.