100 “failed” Afghan asylum seekers have been on hungers strike in Brussels since 31st May to demand regularisation. More details (in French) on the 100grevedelafaim blog and Facebook.
On Friday morning, a “failed” 30 year old Nigerian asylum seeker was found dead in her cell in a Zurich police station. She has been arrested on Wednesday at Zurich airport.
On 27th May, an AFTAM foyer in Paris which had been occupied for a week by Tunisian migrants was evicted and 17 people were taken into custody. Those with papers were released, bailed to return to court on 1st July, whilst those without papers were taken to Vincennes detention centre. A few hours later, AFTAM headquarters were occupied by 30 people demanding the withdrawal of AFTAM”s complaint of “illegal occupation and damages”. The following day, 100 Tunsians and their supporters marched through the streets behind a banner “Neither police, nor charity, a place to self-organise” , and then in the evening 30 people demonstrated outside Vincennes.
Meanwhile on the 30th May the occupants of Chrysalide, 14 rue Bénédit, in Marsailles were evicted by police. The occupants were a group of homeless Tunisian migrants who had lived there for a number of weeks.
On 10th May an Iranian migrant attempting to cross the Channel fell from a lorry near Dunkirk. He was taken to hospital but died of his head wound. In the last two years, two others migrants have died after falling from lorries in the Pas-de-Calais area, a Vietnamese female in May 2009 and a 16 year old Afghan male in April 2010.
Departing on Saturday 2nd July at Bailleul (in the Nord region of France), the Jungletour is a cycle tour of different “jungles” along the north coast of France and Belgium, finishing on Thursday 14th July in Brussels. It is the second Jungletour, following the tour last July of the “jungles” of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region.
On Thurday 27th April two showers for migrants managed by the Calaisien charity Secours catholique in the Marcel-Doret area of the town were vandalised and put out of action. The showers had just been reopened following vandalism against them in late March.
On 1st May, Le Collectif des Tunisiens de Lampedusa à Paris occupied a building belonging to the Mayor of Paris at 51 avenue Simon Bolivar in Paris’ 19th arrondissement. They asked that the Mayor, who had previously denounced the arrests of Tunisians in nearby Villette region, gave them a place where they could live and organise. Three days later, the response from the Mayor: a mass police operation with helicopter, an eviction and the occupants taken into custody.
On Thursday 28th April around 20 activists blocked the entrance to the 127 bis detention centre in Steenokkerzeel, near the main airport of Brussels. They were attempting to stop the deportation of 60 Congolese refugees on a charter flight to Kinshasa organised by the joint European border agency Frontex and “secured” by Belgian federal police.
The action began at 4.30 am when activists blocked the gates using lock-ons. The Congolese prisoners were due to be taken from the detention centre to a plane waiting at the Melsbroek military airport. More prisoners were being brought from four other countries, including the UK as well as Ireland, Holland and Sweden, to join the flight.
At around 9am the Belgian police cutting team managed to clear the blockade and the activists were arrested. Police closed off the area around the detention centre to prevent access to journalists who had arrived to cover the action. By midday the Congolese prisoners had been taken out of the detention centre by bus under a heavy police escort.
On Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th April, dozens of Tunisian migrants who were camped in the parc de la Villette (19th arrondissement of Paris) were arrested by police and placed into custody. Meanwhile 15 Tunisians camped in a park near to la gare Saint-Charles in Marsailles were arrested on Wednesday evening. The prosecutors say that the migrants are in breach of the terms of their temporary Schengen visas as they do not have the means to support themselves.
Around 9pm on Monday 11th April police tried to arrest two passengers who had arrived on a flight from Algeria to Zaventum airport, Brussels. According to the “Het Nieuwsblad” and “De Standaard” newspapers, the two ran from the police, stole a vehicle parked in a hanger, drove across part of the runway and through a fence and two gates onto the E19 motorway. The two have not been apprehended at the time of writing.