Page 8 - ARUBA TODAY
P. 8
A8 WORLD NEWS
Wednesday 20 september 2017
French police evacuate 557 migrants from makeshift camp
By ELAINE GANLEY tained 16 other people, the
Associated Press prefecture said in a state-
PARIS (AP) — French police ment without elaborating.
encircled a makeshift mi- Migrants have been stay-
grant camp in a wooded ing in the Puythouck area
area near Dunkirk on Tues- since an official camp
day, evacuating 557 peo- of wooden shelters hous-
ple, the prefecture of the ing some 1,500 migrants
Nord region said. burned to the ground in
It was the second such April.Aid groups and jour-
operation in two days in nalists at the scene were
northern France, where not allowed to enter the
asylum-seekers and mi- clearing during the eight
grants gather in hopes of or so hours police were re-
making it across the English moving people.
Channel to Britain.Sixty chil- Claire Millot, a member
dren were among the hun- of the aid group Salam,
dreds of people removed which has been bringing
from the camp, which was food to the migrants, said
located in a clearing in the at least 400 migrants were
Grande-Synthe region out- staying in the camp before
side Dunkirk. Seven of them the clearing operation.
had been living on their Many are Afghans and
own and were turned over French police officers evacuate migrants from a makeshift camp in Grand-Synthe, near Dunkirk, Iraqi Kurds, but there are
to a youth association, the northern France, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. The prefecture of the Nord region said that 240 people also Iranians, Pakistanis
had been evacuated from the camp so far, and the operation was continuing.
prefecture said.Police de- (AP Photo) and Sudanese. Millot said
by telephone that with no
toilets and only four water
faucets, conditions in the
camp were deplorable.
But she predicted that
“they’ll come back.”
“They’re living in mud,
(with) some people in situ-
ations of extreme fragility,
children, elderly,” said Eric
Etienne, a Dunkirk official.
“We can’t leave them
in this situation.”Grande-
Synthe Mayor Damien
Careme has said the re-
gion needed another of-
ficial shelter to prevent
migrants from living in the
degrading conditions of
the Puythouck camp.
But Interior Minister Ge-
rard Collomb rejected the
opening of a new camp
after meeting with Careme
in Paris Monday. In a state-
ment, Collomb said such
a move would feed the
hope of getting to Britain,
promoted “by smugglers
who must be fought with
utmost firmness.”President
Emmanuel Macron has
said ending the migrant
crisis was a priority and
that he wants migrants off
France’s streets and by-
ways by the end of the
year.Some 85 Eritrean mi-
grants were evacuated
on Monday from a camp
in the nearby town of
Norrent-Fontes “under the
control of smugglers,” a
statement by the prefect
of the Pas-de-Calais region
said.q
