Four teenage migrants are in a critical condition after being shot during a huge brawl in the French port of Calais involving Afghans and Eritreans armed with sticks and stones, local authorities said, reports The Guardian.
Four Eritreans aged between 16 and 18 were taken to hospital, the local prosecutor’s office said.Another wounded migrant was taken to the nearby city of Lille because of his “very serious state of health,” the local prefect’s office said.
A fight lasting nearly two hours took place on the southern outskirts of Calais among about 100 Eritreans and 30 Afghans who had been queueing for food handouts. It reportedly started when an Afghan fired shots.
A second melee broke out at an industrial site about 5 km (three miles) away, where more than 100 Eritreans fought about 20 Afghans, prosecutors said.
“Police intervened to protect the Afghan migrants faced with 150 to 200 Eritrean migrants,” the local prefecture said.
It was the worst violence in Calais since clashes on 1 July 2017 left 16 people wounded. A year earlier in June, 40 people were injured in clashes in the northern port town which draws migrants trying to cross the Channel into Britain.
France’s interior minister, Gerard Collomb, said he would be visiting the area by helicopter. “After today’s serious incidents, I shall be heading for Calais tonight to take stock of the situation with the prefect, the mayor and local players,” he tweeted.