Two refugees die en route to Britain
July 25, 2015
A 23-year-old Eritrean woman died early Friday after being run over by a car as she tried to cross a road leading to the Eurotunnel freight terminal near Calais, in northern France.
The woman was the eighth migrant to die while trying to use the tunnel under the English Channel to illegally cross into the United Kingdom, authorities said.
A day earlier, another migrant was found dead at the British end of the tunnel, in Folkestone. According to local police, the victim was a young male refugee who travelled on the loading dock of a Eurotunnel shuttle train.
At least 3,000 refugees are currently stranded in the area around Calais, with most coming from Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia and Afghanistan.
Fleeing conflict and looking for better lives, the migrants have been making life-threatening attempts to cross over from France to the United Kingdom, where they believe they will receive better benefits as refugees. More than 8,000 migrants have so far been prevented from illegally crossing the Channel Tunnel by French and British officials, British Home Secretary Theresa May announced last week.
Due to the increasing numbers of migrants, Eurotunnel, the company operating the rail link under the channel, claims it has suffered financial losses due to train delays and increased security. The company has asked the British and French governments to pay $9.7 million euros ($10.6 million) in compensation in order to protect its business from refugees.
mg/cmk (AFP, dpa)