Irina Malenko: Refugees assault the Eurotunnel

The French police arrested almost 600 refugees, who tried to assault the European tunnel and get onto the British territory. The majority of the refugees originally come from Afghanistan, Iraq and Kurdistan.

The first group of 150 refugees broke several barbed wire barriers and gained the free access to the tunnel. Twenty of its guards did not even had a chance to stop them. The first group was then followed by another one - over 400 people: they were coming from a Red Cross camp nearby.

The police units prevented the second group from getting into the tunnel with the use of tear gas. The first crowd of refugees had already managed to go 40 kilometers ahead, but the people were stopped with a lifted wall of steel.

It took the French police more than eight hours to arrest all the refugees and take them all out of the tunnel. One of the refugees showed a lot of resistance and got his hip broken because of that. Fifty people were isolated for the resistance they showed.

The railway communication between England and France was stopped for about ten hours because of the incident. The travellers had to spend the night in hotels. The director of the tunnel demanded from the Red Cross and the French government, the refugee camp should be closed.

The Telegraaf newspaper wrote that the Eurotunnel spent eight million Dutch guilders for the guarding. There were more than 18 thousand refugees detained during their attempts to get to Britain over the first six months of the current year.

Irina Malenko PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov