Hundreds Kurdish illegal immigrants are believed to be heading for Britain after disappearing from a holding camp in the south of France, said the Daily Telegraph on its Internet edition.
The refugees are part of a group of 900 Kurds who were discovered on board a ship which was beached eight days ago on the French Riviera by a gang of people smugglers. Other immigrants have headed for Germany. Police and immigration officials at Channel ports in Britain and at the Eurotunnel terminal are on standby after French officials revealed that the group had disappeared from their camp in southern France, said the telegraph.
The Sunday Times said about half the refugees walked unobstructed past French riot police patrolling the camp's barbed wire perimeter after being granted freedom of travel throughout France for eight days.
Carrying their belongings in suitcases, and dressed in clothes supplied by the Red Cross, many said they hoped to reach relatives in London, according to the paper on Sunday.
It added that the exodus came in spite of warnings by Jack Straw, the home secretary that they would be returned to France if they crossed the Channel.
Both papers reported that the German government arrested on Saturday 16 of the Kurds and sent a further 13 back to France after they turned up in Cologne.
According to the Sunday Times, the evacuation of the camp also coincides with official figures, released on Friday, showing a 10% rise in applications for asylum in Britain compared with the previous month. This was driven partly by a surge in the number of Iraqi applicants, from 665 to 755 – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
