the state installs a marquee to allow migrants to collect their belongings
The Prefecture of Pas-de-Calais has opened a new place for the return of cases seized from migrants during the dismantling. For the associations, this does not put an end to the “harassment policy” and “systematized thefts”.
This is the state’s response to the many criticisms voiced by migrant aid associations in Calais. A new place for the storage and return of migrants’ personal effects has just opened in Calais.
A huge white marquee, installed rue des Huttes à la Ressourcerie, where migrants’ belongings are sorted, dried, and then stored on metal shelves.
This new place replaces the device installed since 2018 and unsanitary by the associations: a large red bee, open to the sky, where bags, tents or blankets were piled up.
This should not however calm the anger of the volunteers on the spot. “It’s the chic version of the business flight”, launches Pierre Roques, coordinator of the Auberge des migrants. I continue : “they are putting in place a very complicated thing, when it would be enough not to take the affairs of the people”.
Not to mention that, according to associations, there is no guarantee that the flights will stop.
Last October, associations denounced the “policy of harassment” of migrants and “systematized thefts”.
“Many backpacks are seized, full, by the cleaning teams mandated during the evictions and are, subsequently, found empty”, pointed out Laurine of Human Rights Observers.
For François Guennoc, the President of the Auberge des migrants: “The things are hardly ever found. We are not sure the circuit is safe.”
On this point, however, the Prefecture of Pas-de-Calais would have been reassuring to associations, indicating to work with the service provider to confirm the transport of business.
Nearly a thousand expulsions had been counted in 2021 by the Human Rights Observers association. Dismantling which, since 2018, according to the State to avoid the points of attachment on the territory and the installation of the networks of smugglers.