A huge fire tore through the Grande-Synthe migrant camp outside the northern French city of Dunkirk late Monday April 10,2017, reducing it to "a heap of ashes", the regional chief said. Firefighters said at least 10 people had been injured in the blaze at the camp, which was home to some 1,500 people, mostly Iraqi Kurds, living in closely packed wooden huts. "There is nothing left but a heap of ashes," Michel Lalande, prefect of France's Nord region, told reporters at the scene as firefighters continued to battle the flames which were visible from several kilometres (miles) away.
"It will be impossible to put the huts back where they were before."
The migrants were evacuated and would be rehoused in emergency accommodation, the prefect said, adding that the Dunkirk suburb of Grande-Synthe had already made two gymnasiums available.
"There must have been fires deliberately set in several different places, it is not possible otherwise. It seems that it is related to fights between Iraqis and Afghans," said Olivier Caremelle, chief of staff of local mayor Damien Careme.
"What I can see for myself is that everything has burned down. There is a communal kitchen and the information point, but it's impossible to walk through the camp and get a really accurate idea of the extent of the damage," Caramelle said.
Fights between the migrants continued after midnight, with riot police struggling to contain them and occasionally being pelted with stones
"No one is able to explain how these events could have happened," said Lalande.
The population of the Grande-Synthe camp has swelled since the destruction last October of the squalid "Jungle" camp near Calais, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) away
thats a grim sight
ReplyDelete