Violence Flares at English Channel Migrant Camps as Ethic Groups Fight for Dominance

CALAIS, FRANCE - DECEMBER 31: Migrants coming from African and Middle-Eastern countries st
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Oliver JJ Lane

Competition for control of the extremely lucrative human trafficking trade between ethnically-based gangs operating in northern France is driving rising violence in the migrant camps, underlining the law and order implications of weak borders.

The once-dominant Kurdish smuggling gangs in northern France have been seen down by the new ascendant Afghan traffickers, with Albanian gangs coming in third, a report on the rising tide of violence associated with turf wars and struggles for big money associated with trafficking states. Following reports by eyewitnesses of gunfire exchanged between Afghan and Kurdish gangs on the English Channel’s southern shores, British newspaper The Times reveals the shifting power dynamics that are feeding violence.

The move towards Afghan gangs is more informed by weight of numbers than canny business practices, it is claimed, with Afghans now the nation group trying to clandestinely break their way into the United Kingdom, and those ‘travellers’ apparently preferring to hire the services of their own kin to enter the country without papers.

The Times states in the past violence in camps was generally between competing Kurdish gangs, but now they are fighting with the Afghans.

As reported earlier this week, gunshots rang out over the Grande-Synthe migrant camp near Calais, Northern France, on the morning of a migrant boat disaster in the English Channel that saw six killed. An Iraqi migrant who witnessed the gunfire said that “turf wars in the camps “happens all the time” and that he thought “I think they just fire their guns in the air mainly to frighten each other. This place is full of bad people.”

The shooting is reminiscent of similar ethnically-based smuggler gang battles experienced at another European frontier, where traffickers attempt to get their ‘customers’ north from Serbia into Hungary. The border wall is strong and, again, the money involved is considerable, leading to gun battles between Pakistani and Afghan gangs which have seen multiple injured, at least one fatality, and a major police deployment to protect the lives and properties of locals whose back yards and farms play host to the migrant gun battles.

As previously reported, those most impacted by the violence and callous disregard for human life of traffickers are the migrants themselves, who pay huge amounts of money to criminal gangs taking advantage of Europe’s weak borders to turn a considerable profit. As stated: “violence is rarely confined to the smugglers and Europe’s courts have had years of cases of traffickers sent down for beating, killing, and raping those who paid them for clandestine travel. In some cases, people smugglers pimp out underage migrant girls in ‘exchange’ for their passage.”

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