A migrant wielding a chainsaw was part of a group that blocked a Belgian driver’s truck in Calais, France, in an attempt to hitch a ride to the UK. The driver’s boss has warned “there will be deaths” if the situation is not brought under control.
The attack took place early on August 1, during a second day of violence staged by asylum seekers attempting to enter the UK.
A group of migrants constructed a small barricade across the road leading to Calais port and set the barrier on fire to force the driver to stop.
After seeing one of the migrants brandishing a chainsaw, the trucker opted to break through the barricade without stopping.
The attackers came from the 'Jungle' migrant camp, where there are thousands of illegal structures hosting an estimated 7,300 asylum seekers desperately hoping to reach the UK.
People smugglers are believed to be running rampant in the area as migrants are desperate to find any way of getting to Britain.
Britain’s Express newspaper quoted the boss of the truck driver, who addressed the authorities with a plea to act.
“There will be deaths. Our drivers are threatened every night,” he said.
The night prior to the chainsaw attack, migrants broke through a fence protecting the main port road and set fire to a passing truck and smashed the windows of a taxi.
The situation “will end up with someone being killed unless the government gets their act together,” UK Independence Party MEP Mike Hookem said.
“If migrants are now arming themselves with chainsaws then drivers might start to think they need to be able to defend themselves because the situation is out of control with people desperate to come to Britain,” Hookem said, adding that drivers’ work is vital for Britain.
The migrants will not stay in France and the UK will have to address this problem, Hookem warned, going on to say that bringing the migrant situation under control will possibly require “some military backup.”
French police have been struggling to control the Jungle camp as violence often erupts at the site. Just a week ago a brawl involving some 200 Ethiopians and Afghans resulted in an African migrant being hacked to death, while six others were badly injured.
All previous attempts by the French authorities to relocate the Jungle camp have encountered violent resistance from its occupants, although large parts of the camp were demolished and the current population of the camp is not as numerous as it was at its peak last summer.
Local Calais residents are also terrified of their illegal neighbors, with reports of rioting asylum seekers stoning “anything that moves.”
“We could see this spilling over into a civil war on the streets of Calais thanks to EU open borders and the UK government's negligence of our border force,” MEP Hookem said.