An order, taken Tuesday by the prefect of police Didier Lallement, expressly asked the occupants to "leave the premises at the latest within twelve hours from [its] posting". Many still did not leave on their own this Wednesday morning from their makeshift shelters on the banks of the Saint-Denis canal, in Aubervilliers.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 migrants of Afghan, Ethiopian, Sudden or Chadian origin had settled there in recent weeks. "We do not know where we are going to go, but we hope for help," expected Safi, an Afghan warned Tuesday of the imminent dismantling.
Early this Wednesday, from 4 am, the police, in number, were massed in the area. At 6.30 am, the evacuation of the camp began, after the green light from the prefecture.
Evacuation this morning of the camps set up in #Aubervilliers, following the operations carried out since the end of 2019 in the north-east of Paris. pic.twitter.com/iDo5m6MPKB
- Police Prefecture (@prefpolice) July 29, 2020CRS trucks and gendarmes are positioned near the camp which has gathered, until Tuesday, nearly 2000 people. Several groups were gathered at different points in the district before the arrival of police trucks taking migrants to gymnasiums spread throughout the Paris region.
These gatherings quickly generated tensions among the hundreds of evacuees, hissing at regular intervals for the intervention of the police.
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The operation is expected to last until 8 a.m.
In recent weeks, many residents had been moved by the exponential growth of the camp and the hygiene conditions on site. According to some activists, tensions were also growing between the different communities.
The evacuation was requested by the new mayor (UDI) of Aubervilliers, Karine Franclet. “This is one of the files that I inherited and I very quickly alerted the Prefect to this situation because it was necessary to put an end to this dramatic human situation,” she explains. With the Covid-19 epidemic resuming, health rules were not respected. And we cannot be satisfied to see 2000 people in tents, with these episodes of heat. "