POLICE reinforcements have arrived in the French port city of Calais after clashes among migrants left 22 people injured, with the government warning of more potential violence.
Interior minister Gerard Collomb said five of the victims were injured by gunfire in Thursday’s fighting. He blamed migrant traffickers and “totally organised” gangs for the violence.
Police are seeking a shooting suspect but have made no arrests, he said.
Firearms are rare among migrants, and the shootings represent the most serious clash in recent times among migrants around Calais.
Two extra police units have now arrived, Collomb confirmed. He added that while in the past such violence was spontaneous, it appears to be growing more organised. He said local authorities have dismantled six migrant trafficking networks already this year, compared to 20 in all of 2017.
The prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais region said the gunfire was the culmination of a fight between Afghan and Eritrean migrants, and took place after a meal distribution near the Calais hospital.
In a second confrontation, up to 200 Eritrean migrants cornered 30 Afghans near the former site of a makeshift migrant camp that housed thousands of people before it was evacuated and destroyed in 2016.
Collomb said the Government will start meal distribution to migrants outside Calais in the coming two weeks, instead of leaving it to aid groups, in an effort to stop sites from becoming fixed nodes of tension.
Insisting that “very few” people successfully sneak across to Britain, Collomb said: “If you want to go to Britain, you shouldn’t go to Calais.”
Collomb also called for long-term “solutions” to speed up asylum decisions and deport economic migrants with no right to refugee status.
Tensions have been high in Calais since the camp was destroyed. More than 1130 French security forces have been posted in Calais to keep migrants out of the port and Eurotunnel and to stop them from setting up camps.
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