Coronavirus: NGOs request the shelter of foreign minors in Marseille

The NGOs Doctors of the World and Doctors without Borders demanded this Friday before the administrative court that about fifty African minors living in a squat in Marseille be relocated "in places adapted to the requirements of the fight against Covid 19".

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These adolescents from sub-Saharan Africa and some of whom are 15 years old live in "unworthy and dangerous" conditions, deplored the lawyers of the two associations during a hearing held with difficulty by videoconference and that a journalist from the AFP was allowed to follow. These minors live in a building in the diocese of Marseille transformed into a squat in December 2018 by activists in order to "get out of the street" of isolated minors as well as families of asylum seekers.

The 200 occupants of the Saint-Just squat share four toilets and a small kitchen. Minors sleep side by side up to eight per room on mattresses infested with bedbugs, said NGO lawyers, Antonin Sopena, Agnès Cauchon-Riondet and Anaïs Leonhardt. The Departmental Council which is responsible by law for the accommodation and support of minors is pointed out by the associations for its "systemic deficiencies which the health crisis has aggravated".

A "real and imminent" risk of contamination

In the absence of soap, hydroalcoholic gel, unable to wash their hands and respect the barrier gestures, "the risk of widespread contamination of young people is real and imminent," warned the NGOs. Regretting "a trial of intent while the department is trying to do everything it can", the lawyer for the Departmental Council, Me Jorge Mendes Constante, asked that the associations be dismissed.

If convicted, he demanded that the prefect and the city of Marseille also be ordered to lend their assistance to the department for the shelter of these minors by making requisitions of habitable places. The director of child welfare pointed out that the department takes care of a thousand unaccompanied minors and that, since the beginning of confinement, the children's judges have ordered the placement of 110 new adolescents.

While the lawyers for the associations recalled that there are 9500 hotel rooms in Marseille currently empty, the Departmental Council claims to be confronted with the hoteliers' refusal to accommodate unaccompanied minors. The official, however, mentioned ongoing discussions to open a holiday center of around fifty places near Marseille.

A judgment expected on Monday

The administrative court will deliver its judgment on Monday. On April 3, the Marseille administrative court ruled that the authorities should provide emergency accommodation for 23 young migrants living in a squat in Gap, in the Hautes-Alpes, and exposed to the danger of exposure to Covid- 19. The judge had notably estimated that "the promiscuity in which they live (...) characterize a deficiency in the fulfillment by the services of the State of their obligation of emergency accommodation"