Paris migrant camp evacuated

French police on Friday evacuated a makeshift migrant camp located between two metro stations in the northeast of Paris.

The operation to shift the camp's population of between 2,000 and 3,000 people to reception centres across the capital began at 6 a.m., Efe news reported.

Some 600 police officers and 250 volunteers from various humanitarian organisations were involved in evacuating the camp, which was made up of tents and other temporary structures.

Following the dismantling of the "Jungle" migrant camp in the northern port city of Calais last week, French authorities had warned that this camp, between the Stalingrad and Jaures metro stations, would also be dismantled.

The camp at Stalingrad has been cleared on other occasions -- the last time being on September 16 -- but it has been building up again in recent weeks.

On Monday, the authorities conducted an operation to identify the camp's occupants, discovering that the majority were from the Horn of Africa region -- Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia -- and from the Asian countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

--IANS

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