Over 2,000 refugees removed from Paris

More than 2,000 refugee and migrant rough sleepers have been evicted from Paris and taken to temporary shelters by riot police.

Hundreds of refugees and migrants have been sleeping in unsanitary conditions since arriving in the Porte de La Chapelle area in the French capital, forced to sleep under bridges and on roads with no access to basics like sanitation, water and food.

The eviction began at dawn this morning as riot police watched over as men and women, who had come from countries like Afghanistan and Eritrea, were gathered.

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The evacuation is reportedly the 34th police evacuation of large numbers of refugees and migrants who have been sleeping rough in Paris’ streets since 2015, according to the Guardian. Previously authorities have placed boulders under bridges where migrants and refugees have frequently slept.

France’s asylum system has been criticised for being slow and inefficient with aid workers calling on the government to establish an efficient long-term strategy for processing and housing the asylum-seekers so they may live in decent conditions rather than facing emergency action.

An aid centre, set up in November, proved insufficient as many would line up each to gain access to it only to be turned away because the entre was too full forcing them to instead sleep outside the quarters.

According to aid organisations, more than 1,000 people slept there with more than 200 arriving each week.

#MigrantCrisis 

French authorities organised transportation to take people to temporary locations within the Paris region and were brought to school gymnasiums vacant due to the summer holidays.

“The number of people arriving in France is not likely to drop this summer,” Guillaume Schers, who runs the emergency programme for Terre d’Asile, a French NGO working with asylum-seekers, said.

Head of French operations for Médecins sans Frontières, Corinne Torre, said poor hygiene and sanitary conditions for the people who had been sleeping rough in Paris was worsening and causing skin infections.

Local politicians in Paris have warned against a continuing cycle of the evacuations and the likely return of rough-sleepers due to the lack of a long-term strategy on asylum.

The last police evacuation in Porte de La Chapelle happened just two months ago when 1,610 migrants were moved, the Guardian reported.