Police
arrest 24 after migrants stormed ferry temporarily closing Port of
Calais
Mayor
ordered closure after 500 migrants break off from demonstration and
break into port compound. Police arrests could include Britons.
By Rory Mulholland,
Paris9:43PM GMT 23 Jan 2016
The port of Calais
was temporarily closed on Saturday after a ferry was stormed by 50
migrants from the nearby "Jungle" camp, earlier visited by
Jeremy Corbyn.
Up to 500 migrants
had broken off from a protest march through the town about migrants'
conditions, according to the mayor, Natacha Bouchart.
Around 150 then
broke through the port's perimeter fence, and 50 made it to the
gangplanks of the P&O ferry Spirit of Britain. Photographs later
showed the migrants standing on the upper decks of the ferry.
Police have arrested
24 migrants.
A further 11 people
believed to be from the No Borders activist group were also detained
after being found on the ship.
The group, which has
British members in Calais, has been accused by police of encouraging
migrants from the Jungle to riot.
Officials did not
give the nationality of the No Borders activists detained.
Xavier Bertrand, the
president of the Nord Pas-de-Calais Picardie region and a former
government minister, tweeted that "the attitude of No Borders in
Calais is scandalous - there must be punishment.
"I demand that
the government urgently hold a crisis meeting," he said, without
specifying what he was accused the activist group of.
It comes as a French
official said: "A group of 500 people forced their way through
police lines and headed to the port, and 150 people were able to get
into the fenced-off area. Of these, a group of some 50 managed to
board a ferry."
For a few hours the
migrants blocked the gangway to the ferry to prevent police getting
on board.
Later in a
statement, the port of Calais said: "The evacuation is complete,
there are no more migrants on the ferry. The evacuation was conducted
calmly by police."
Ferry services
resumed at 8:30pmm local time, regional officials said.
Security forces from
Calais harbour (top) spray migrants (on the desk) with sea water
after they broke into the Port of Calais and boarded the P&O
ferry Spirit of Britain on Saturday evening
Security forces from
Calais harbour (top) spray migrants (on the deck) with sea water
Photo: Louis Witter
The incident came
after “serious disorder” took place in the centre of Calais,
according to the mayor, at the end of a largely peaceful
demonstration by about 2,000 activists from the UK and other
countries as well as migrants from the nearby ‘Jungle’.
Twice this week
there were clashes between riot police in Calais and hundreds of
migrants from the Jungle, who mostly come from troubled countries
such as Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan or Eritrea.
Police were called
to try and remove the migrants, but in the meantime the mayor said
the port was closed.
She issued an angry
stream of tweets aimed at both the international support groups who
organised the march and at the French government.
"This is proof
that demonstrations organised by pseudo-defenders of migrants are
essentially intended to attack normal life," she said. "I
had made clear to the government my disapproval of this
demonstration."
A group of migrants
storms towards the port of Calais during a demonstration on Saturday
The migrants broke
through the port's perimeter fence Photo: London News Pictures
Before going to the
Jungle, Mr Corbyn had visited another migrant camp in nearby Dunkirk
and decried the "dreadful conditions" there for its 2,500
thousand occupants, most of them Kurds from Syria, Iraq and Iran.
The Labour leader's
visit came amid growing urgency over the migrant crisis, with French
prime minister Manuel Valls warning the huge influx was putting the
European Union's future in "grave danger".
Four Syrian migrants
arrived in Britain this week from the camp in Calais after a landmark
ruling by a UK court which could see more crossing the Channel.
The court cited
European Union legislation, under which those who have a relative
living legally in another European country - as the four Syrians do
in Britain - have a legal entitlement to apply to seek asylum there.
Under the rules,
asylum seekers should first claim asylum in France, but the court
agreed that bureaucratic failures meant this rarely happened, and
that evidence of a written claim to asylum in France was sufficient.
Last night P&O
Ferries said: "The Port of Calais is resolving a security
incident. As a result our vessels are subject to delay of between 90
and 120 minutes."
A statement from the
Port of Dover said that “services to and from Calais via the Port
of Dover are affected, but DFDS Seaways services are still running to
Dunkirk as normal.”
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