Foreigner crush tests defenses at Chunnel

France adds police to deter crossings

Foreigners flee railway police through a fence Wednesday near their squalid camp in Calais in northern France. About 3,000 foreigners have been living around Calais as they attempt to get to England.
Foreigners flee railway police through a fence Wednesday near their squalid camp in Calais in northern France. About 3,000 foreigners have been living around Calais as they attempt to get to England.

LONDON -- Britain and France scrambled Wednesday to address the latest refugee crisis in Europe after hundreds of foreigners from Africa and the Middle East attempted for a second-consecutive night to flee squalid camps in northern France and force their way through the Channel Tunnel to England.

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AP

Police in Calais, France, block foreigners Wednesday from getting to train tracks that lead to the Channel Tunnel connecting France and England.

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AP

Trucks waiting to enter the tunnel Wednesday back up on the M20 highway in southern England.

The French police said there had been about 2,100 attempts by the foreigners Monday to gain access to the tunnel, also referred to as the Chunnel. Eurotunnel, the company that operates the 31-mile English Channel crossing for trains, put the number for Tuesday night at about 1,500.

At least one man was crushed to death and another foreigner was critically injured in the attempts this week. Most of those who tried to cross were caught and turned back -- free, by and large, to try again -- leaving the governments of France and the United Kingdom rushing to shore up defenses around the tunnel and deal with the political and economic reverberations from the influx of foreigners.

The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, sent 120 additional police officers to Calais on Wednesday and described the city, a port on the English Channel, as "a mirror of the conflicts and crises that are tearing some of the world's regions apart."

"This exceptional migrant situation has dramatic human consequences," he said.

France's government has called on Eurotunnel to step up protections in a 14-mile perimeter of the rail terminals.

Gilles Debove, a French police union official said the additional officers would be a "burst of oxygen" to protecting the terminals area, but he expected the refugees' attempts to cross the channel to continue.

By Wednesday night, a police helicopter hovered overhead and police officers turned back about two dozen refugees.

In London, British ministers and other officials held emergency talks as pressure mounted for a stronger response to the situation that has disrupted trade and tourism in two of the world's wealthiest nations.

Calais has joined other spots in Europe that have formed holding areas for high numbers of the foreigners. The other spots include the islands of Lampedusa in Italy and Lesbos in Greece, where many of the foreigners first land; the fence area that Hungary is erecting along its border with Serbia, to stop the foreigners from traveling northward by land; and cities like Ventimiglia, Italy, on the border with France.

The English Channel is a focus of the broader European crisis because many foreigners are trying to travel to the U.K., where they believe they will find it easier to get jobs. The country also appears more attractive because it does not operate an identity-card system and because many foreigners speak some English.

Calais is feeling the strain. Eurotunnel said in a statement Wednesday that it had intercepted more than 37,000 foreigners since January.

Emmanuel Agius, deputy mayor of Calais, said in an interview Wednesday that the city would like help from the United Nations to deal with the foreigners, and he called for a summit with the leaders of the U.K. and France to address the situation.

"The city is continuing to suffer from this issue, economically and tourism-wise," he said. Like other French officials, he suggested that the U.K. needed to do more to make itself a less appealing destination and to control the flow of foreigners on its side of the English Channel.

That sentiment has provoked a political reaction in the U.K., where the government's ability to police its frontiers has been questioned and where frustration with what many see as an insufficient response by France is growing.

On Wednesday, Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing U.K. Independence Party, said the option of calling in the army to search incoming vehicles should "absolutely" be considered to help resolve a "lawless, scary" situation.

British Prime Minister David Cameron called the surge of foreigners seeking to cross the channel "very concerning."

The U.K. has promised an extra $11 million to reinforce security on the French side of the channel, and Cameron was careful not to criticize the French authorities, upon whom the British rely to contain the continental crisis.

"There's no point trying to point fingers of blame," he said. "It's about working with the French, putting in place these additional security measures."

Theresa May, the British home secretary, presided Wednesday over an emergency No. 10 Downing Street meeting of senior ministers and officials.

After having met with Cazeneuve, her French counterpart, on Tuesday, May said the two countries were working to return illegal travelers to Africa. It was, she added, vital to ensure that the foreigners know that they will not be able to journey into the U.K. illegally.

Refugee camp

About 3,000 refugees have been living in and around Calais, most of them in a camp known as "the jungle," a squalid stopping place for people who believe that they can cross the English Channel from there.

The foreigners there routinely try to get into the terminals, hoping to hide in or under trucks that are lined up waiting to be loaded onto the rail lines that ferry them under the channel to the U.K.

Those caught on the French side are generally immediately freed to return to the camps and try again. Those caught on the British side may be detained while their applications for asylum are considered. Some stay hidden on the trucks as the vehicles roll off the trains. The stowaways wait until the trucks stop for fuel, then hop off and vanish.

It's not known how many reach the U.K. stowed away on trucks, trains or ships.

About 25 foreigners were seen getting off a public bus in Calais early Wednesday with a police officer, who left them by the side of the road. Several said they were returning from a night of trying to cross the channel.

"[We] come from train here and tomorrow, inshallah, try again in the train," said a man from Eritrea, who used the Arabic expression for "God willing" and who would not give his name because he planned more attempts to reach England.

Since June, nine people have died trying to make the channel crossing. The man killed this week, believed to be from Sudan and in his mid-20s, was crushed by a truck as he tried to stow away, said Debove, the police union official.

"Every day there's a risk of life. People are losing their life. Accept them or reject them," said 31-year-old Nazirullah, who gave no surname. He said he arrived in Calais three months ago. He said he had worked at the French Embassy back in Afghanistan.

While many European Union members take part in the 26-country passport-free travel zone known as the Schengen Area, the U.K. does not. But the number of daily crossings from France to the U.K. makes the Channel Tunnel and ferry ports difficult to police.

Debove said there have been only about 60 police officers patrolling the vast complex at night, where the foreigners can often be spotted openly climbing over or cutting through security fences.

Around Europe

Elsewhere in Europe, the crisis has had its effects in cities and along international borders far from transcontinental access points.

In Berlin, an activist group said more than 1,000 people are sleeping outside each night because the influx of asylum-seekers this year has overwhelmed German authorities and resources.

The problem there has been compounded by bureaucratic rules that prevent more foreigners from being placed in private apartments, the Berlin Refugee Council said, urging authorities to increase the housing allowance for refugees.

Because the city's refugee centers are full, authorities have given about 1,800 people vouchers for private hostels in recent months, though only about 600 hostel places are available, the group said.

More than 3,400 foreigners have arrived in the city so far in July, three times more than during the same month last year, authorities said.

Berlin's problems are reflected across Germany. The federal government says the number of asylum applications in Germany could surpass 500,000 this year, compared with about 200,000 in 2014.

The German army has made available eight barracks to house the travelers, and the national Red Cross society has built 21 emergency accommodation centers. That includes eight seasonal "tent cities'" with space for 4,600.

In Hungary, the government said the construction of a fence meant to stop the flow of foreigners entering the country through its southern border with Serbia will be completed by Aug. 31.

Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said Interior Minister Sandor Pinter had said at a Cabinet meeting "that the security fence can be built along its full length in a month." The project was given a Nov. 30 deadline.

Close to 100,000 foreigners and refugees have entered Hungary so far this year, compared with fewer than 43,000 asylum-seekers in all of 2014.

Kovacs said the government had earmarked $79.3 million to pay for the 109-mile-long fence, in addition to $23.1 million set aside earlier.

Information for this article was contributed by Stephen Castle, Aurelien Breeden, Alissa J. Rubin and Elian Peltier of The New York Times; and by Elaine Ganley, Lori Hinnant, Maggy Donaldson, Chris Den Hond, Danica Kirka, Jill Lawless, Patricia Thomas, Frank Jordans and Pablo Gorondi of The Associated Press.

A Section on 07/30/2015

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