British lorry drivers have been left “sitting ducks” by a work-to-rule strike by French customs officials, with illegal migrants hoping to infiltrate the United Kingdom taking advantage of the queues to threaten truckers with violence and even rape.
The Road Haulage Association said it had had feedback from one of its drivers suggesting he was delayed for a full twelve hours while attempting to board a ferry from Dunkirk, France, to Dover, England, KentOnline reports.
“First for us comes the welfare of drivers and they are sitting ducks to migrants,” an RHA spokesman stated bluntly.
“They have been threatened with baseball bats, chains, knives, and guns.”
“We had a report from a woman driver who was told if she didn’t let migrants into her cab she would be raped,” a colleague added.
“That particular incident happened 18 months to two years ago outside Calais but it shows these migrants will stop at nothing to get into the UK.”
The situation along the French coast is so dire, in fact, that the Road Haulage Association are demanding that French president Emmanuel Macron send in military forces to protect drivers and restore order.
“Yet again we’re hearing horrifying stories of truckers running a gauntlet of people trying to break into their lorries. It’s completely unacceptable. The French authorities need to do more to protect UK-bound lorries,” demanded RHA chief executive Richard Burnett.
Illegal migrants determined to reach Britain have gone well beyond threats on several occasions.
For example, an ordinary commuter was killed when they crashed into a tree trunk trap migrants had set on the road to Calais, designed to make lorries slow down enough to allow them to leap aboard.
In another incident, a Lithuanian driver was stabbed by migrant stowaways with the knife they used to cut their way into his trailer while inspecting it at a rest-stop last summer, leaving him “seriously injured”.
Another driver was hospitalised with a serious head injury after a group of migrants ambushed him and beat him unconscious with a brick and hijacked his vehicle while he was inspecting the damage from a previous boarding attempt.
Drivers are increasingly afraid to check their vehicles for boarders in light of the increasing violence – but often feel they have no choice but to do so, as the authorities impose heavy fines if they find a vehicle is harbouring stowaways.
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