French Police Cause Misery For Migrants In Calais: HRW

Paris, Oct 7 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Oct, 2021 ) :French police are inflicting misery on migrants in the northern port of Calais, routinely tearing down their tents and forcing them to wander the streets as part of a deterrence policy, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report Thursday.

The 75-page report documents methods used by authorities to prevent the emergence of another major migrant settlement in Calais, five years after the demolition of the sprawling "Jungle" camp which housed up to 10,000 people at its peak.

Calais has for years been a rallying point for migrants from the middle East, Asia and Africa trying to smuggle across the English Channel to Britain.

But faced with growing public anti-migrant sentiment, President Emmanuel Macron's government has waged a campaign to prevent new camps emerging.

The tactics used by the police to keep migrants at bay include systematically tearing down the tents they set up in the woods, on wasteland or under bridges, regularly confiscating their belongings and harassing NGOs trying to provide them with aid, according to HRW.

"The authorities carry out these abusive practices with the Primary purposes of forcing people to move elsewhere, without resolving their migration status or lack of housing, or of deterring new arrivals," it said.