Almost 500 migrants, freshly arrived in Europe after crossing the Mediterranean by boat have set up camp in central Paris as they make their way to their final destination – the United Kingdom.
The camp, established under railway bridges with old mattresses and tents provided by local charities is already awash with litter, but its inhabitants will not stay for long. One of the hopeful, 21-year-old Amanueal who had paid smugglers £2,500 to get to Europe from Eritrea told theLocal.fr: “I have tried three times to get on a train to Calais, but each time the police caught me and threw me off.
“We try to hide in the toilets, but it’s difficult. We’ll try again. That’s our life for the moment, but we hope it will get better once we reach the UK”.
All of the men in the camps are Africans, the majority of whom have come to Paris from Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia, crossing the Mediterranean by smuggler boat before vanishing into Europe. Some said they had friends who had died trying to reach Europe.
A Moroccan man told reporters that they group had already been informed that the French authorities would be clearing the site soon, as the Paris government didn’t want the unsightly camps in place for the start of the tourist season.
Despite the dangers of crossing Europe’s internal sea, and then trying to reach the ‘promised land’ in Britain, the migrants said it was worth the risks. One told reporters that risking drowning was better than staying in Libya, where “there are bad people there and they do bad things to women”.
Worse conditions await the roving band of migrants once they reach Calais, the last port of call in mainland Europe before reaching Britain. Breitbart London has reported on the insanitary conditions of the camps, which have been repeatedly broken up by French police as they become breeding grounds for infectious disease, and parasitical skin conditions like Scabies.
British motorists have been warned of migrants attempting to hide in their cars as they cross the channel by boat or train, much as migrants have attempted to sneak on to lorries. A number have been killed by falling under the wheels of vehicles as they attempted to cling to the underside.
Images reproduced with permission from theLocal.fr
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