Calais migrants hoping to enter UK start hunger strike

Around 35 migrants hoping to enter Britain from Calais in northern France began a hunger strike on Wednesday.

Heading for Britain ... Eriteran refugees at food distribution centre in Calais. 27 May. Reuters/Pascal Rossignol

Most of the hunger strikers are from Afghanistan or Egypt and they are supported by the other 260 or so migrants who are currently occupying a meal centre in Calais, according to local activist Philippe Wannesson.

On their website Passeurs d’Hospitalités, the migrants call on French and British authorities “to resume the interrupted dialogue and meet with us without delay”.

The migrants say they want:

• Houses "in Calais for all migrants who wish to go to England and the asylum seekers forced to live in the street"
• Houses "with proper hygienic conditions : toilets, showers, garbage"
• Houses "where we can come and go at anytime to be able to keep trying to cross to England"
• Houses "safe from the police controls and mistreatment and from evictions"
• to have access to three meals a day
• To "open negotiations between France and the United Kingdom in order that people can access the British territory."
   

“They are exhausted. Some were threatening to sew their lips together this morning, we told them not to do that, to eat,” said an activist who wished to remain anonymous.

Some of the migrants who are not on hunger strike are considering other action, such as demonstrations or putting up banners in the town centre.

On Wednesday evening the police authorities said they would meet with local organisations to monitor the ongoing situation.

On 28 May, police cleared the makeshift camps where around 550 migrants were living. Since then 300 or so have been sleeping in the meal distribution centre in Calais.