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French police on Tuesday launched an operation to clear a migrant camp of more than 2,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the Saint-Denis enclave, north of Paris.
Police arrived at the camp before dawn, a mix of tents and makeshift shelters made from plastic sheeting and cardboard boxes under an overpass on the outskirts of the capital.
The migrants, who included some families with young children, were ordered to board buses. When there was a crowd to board the buses, the police fired tear gas, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene. Some children were trapped in the tear gas.
The camp, with a capacity for 2,400 people according to various sources, is located below the A1 motorway junction near the Stade de France, the main sports stadium outside the center of Paris in the commune of Seine-Saint-Denis. Representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working with migrants also identified the number of migrants in the camp as at least 2,000.
Since then, the camp has become very large and conditions are considered unsanitary, especially as it relates to COVID-19, without a source of water to wash hands and with very little use of masks.
In a statement, Paris Police Prefect Didier Lallemont said: “These camps are not acceptable. This operation is carried out to ensure that people in a regular situation are protected and people in an irregular situation do not intend to stay in the territory “, in a report by the Anadolu Agency (AA).
Several hours after the raid began, hundreds were still waiting to board the buses. Police said that people who moved out of the camp would be given alternative accommodation.
Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin supported the action, saying on Twitter on Tuesday: “On my instructions, the Paris prefecture is evacuating an illegal camp of 2,000 people living in deplorable sanitary conditions in Saint-Denis this morning. Thanks to the mobilized security forces and the agents of the 75th prefecture who ensure their refuge. “
Previously, a migrant camp in Calais was disbanded in 2016. Its dire conditions had earned it the nickname “the jungle”.
The camp with 1,918 inhabitants, who were later transferred to 80 shelters, became a symbol of the government’s inability to handle a growing immigration problem, especially on the coast of France, where migrants flock in search of a better life. .
