Bishops discuss Calais migrant crisis

April 29, 2016

Representatives of the English, French, and German episcopates have met in Paris to discuss the situation in Calais, France, where thousands of migrants who hope to enter the United Kingdom have gathered.

“It is a situation that is evolving on one side into scattering migrants across the nation, on the other side into an endless arrival of migrants who want to cross the [English] Channel,” said Father Lorenzo Prencipe of the Bishops’ Conference of France, according to the Italian news agency SIR.

Calling for “some form of pressure on the governments, so that the agreements that currently govern this deadlock may be revised,” Father Prencipe added that “we have to find out how to support the local populations who are affected by these arrivals of migrants, especially in northern France.”

 

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Further information:

• Europe: French, English and German bishops in charge of migration in Paris tomorrow to “take stock of the situation” (SIR)
• 'They are falling apart': the fate of lone children in Calais' refugee camp (The Guardian)
• Drones deployed over Calais by border security to bid to stop migrants using Channel tunnel to access Britain (Daily Mirror)