Calais: investigation after suspicions of police violence on migrants
The Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into “possible violence committed by persons holding public authority” after associations reported police violence against migrants in Calais in August.
Upon receipt of the report, “I seized the IGPN (General Inspectorate of the National Police) of Lille to investigate the facts which were reported to me”, specified to AFP the prosecutor of Boulogne-sur- Mer, Guirec Le Bras, specifying that the investigations “began”.
The alleged facts, which date back to the night of August 22 to 23, are recounted in a press release from Human Rights Observers (HRO), a project supported by the Auberge des Migrants and Utopia 56.
“Blows to the face”
The victims reported to the associations that a group of migrants, originally from Eritrea, had gone that evening “to the parking lot of a service station in Calais in order to try to get into a truck with the hope of joining the UK. Once there, “at the sight of a CRS truck, part of the group” turned around “and only two 18-year-olds” remained.
According to their testimony, the CRS would then have “kicked them in the face” and, while these two people were on the ground, “about seven CRS” would have “kicked them many times on the ground”, according to the press release from the associations. . “The CRS left laughing, lost the two injured people on the ground,” they added.
Contacted, the firefighters transported one of the victims to the hospital. The medical certificate drawn up by a doctor “reports suffering and a deviation of the nasal bridge (fracture), pain on chest palpation, as well as scrotal pain”, they specified.