France: Makeshift Migrant Camp Sees Spree of Shootings as Rival Smugglers Battle

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Chris Tomlinson

Several people were injured as a result of gun violence at a makeshift migrant camp in northern France this week, as some blame rivalries between migrant-smuggling gangs for the shootings.

The three people were injured during shootings that took place on Tuesday and Wednesday at a makeshift migrant camp located under a bridge in the town of Loon-Plage, near Dunkirk.

The first shooting on Tuesday saw a 32-year-old migrant from Eritrea and another man injured, with the Eritrean being hospitalised. The second shooting on Wednesday saw a young Iraqi man shot in the head. He was rushed to a nearby hospital in the city of Lille, the European Union-funded website InfoMigrants reports.

Claire Millot, general secretary of the Salam association, a group that works in the area, blamed people-smugglers for the violence, saying: “There are settling of accounts between smugglers who are on the camp… quarrels over power, over territory… The conflicts are between the smugglers.”

There have been several shootings at camps in northern France in recent months, including a shooting in May at a camp near Grande-Synthe.

Claudette Hannebic, a member of the ADRA association, a humanitarian group linked to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, commented on this shooting, saying that her group has never seen such levels of violence in ten years.

The makeshift camps are often inhabited by migrants who wish to illegally cross the English Channel to the United Kingdom, and the number of such illegal crossings has surged this year.

During the months of August alone, more migrants crossed the Channel than in the entire year of 2020.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.

 

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