Hit-and-run driver kills migrant on motorway to Calais

French police are searching for a hit-and-run driver who ran over and killed a migrant near the Channel port of Calais on Thursday night.

Afghan refugees in Calais in 2009 AFP/Philippe Huguen

Police have appealed to witnesses of the incident on the A16 motorway near Mack-en-Calais to come forward, by calling a phone number, 03284421, so that they can track down the car involved.

The driver apparently hit the migrant, a man who has not yet been identified, and sped off.

Rights groups say that about 650 migrants are usually squatting in the Calais region on any given day in the hope of being able to cross to the UK, which is 38 kilometres away across the Channel.

At the end of last month a shower block used by migrants was damaged in an apparent arson attack, the third since it was built in 2009.