Despite levelling of makeshift camp, migrants move only 300 metres

Despite levelling of makeshift camp, migrants move only 300 metres

The gendarmes dismantled an unauthorised migrant camp, but the dwellers decided to go to another nearby. The mayor of the town calls for the establishment of reception centres, while an NGO aiding migrants complained that the area was ploughed by the authorities in an attempt to prevent the tents from being set up there again.

POLITIKA NAGYVILÁG English 2021. OKTÓBER 15. 16:03

In the town of Grande-Synthe in the north-eastern French department of Nord, gendarmes have dismantled an unauthorised migrant camp, and evacuated the several hundred, mostly Kurdish, inhabitants. Utopia 56, an NGO providing aid to migrants, published a video of the evacuation operation, commenting that the authorities had the site ploughed to prevent the tents from being pitched there again, and moreover, gave no explanation for their actions. The tweet also adds that the police are constantly harassing those immigrants trying to get to England.

Utopia 56 coordinator Marie Chapelle told the press that the majority of the approximately 1,000 people evacuated from the camp moved to an older similar camp just 300 metres away.

However, contrary to the number given by the pro-migration NGO, the regional newspaper La Voix du Nord reported that authorities had evacuated around 6 to 7 hundred and not one thousand people from the camp. 118 of the evacuees were transferred to a safe place, according to the department’s prefect.

The evacuation took place a few days after Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin visited the region. Regarding the situation, Claire Millot, a member of the aid group Salam, complained that reception centres had insufficient capacities. Grande-Synthe Mayor Martial Beyaert accused the Interior Minister of deliberately dodging the issue of the migrant camp in question during his visit on 9 October. The mayor pushed for the establishment of reception centres along the coast to accommodate migrants and called on the French state to deliver on its commitment to provide food for them.