Posted
As the cold and winter gradually set in, more than 200 migrants were evacuated from a tunnel on Friday December 10, early in the morning, where they had been camping between Paris and Saint-Denis for several weeks. Solidarity was set up in order to come to their aid.
Under the Paris ring road, a stone’s throw from the buildings of the 19th arrondissement, around a hundred migrants have found refuge in a tunnel. During the arrival of the France Télévisions teams, families sleep in tents with young children. A couple say they fled persecution in Côte d’Ivoire with their two daughters, the last one only a year old. “We only ask for accommodation. We would like to be accommodated, and to work, not to be reduced to simple beggars here “, confides the mother of the family. All say they do not get places in emergency accommodation, which is already saturated.
For a month and a half, local residents have been helping them to drop off essential products. It’s barely three degrees, a neighbor and her five-year-old son are came bring warm clothes and some sweets. “When I saw these little bits in the strollers, I did not sleep all night, says Fatoumata Dembélé, a resident of the XIXth arrondissement. It is true that as a mother, I necessarily think of my children who are warm, it hurts a lot.“ Myriam Foucher comes here every day, and has regularly alerted the authorities with other residents: “What we want for these people is dignity.“ After two weeks spent under the tunnel, two families will be accommodated in a gymnasium. The mobilization of neighbors will have finally borne fruit: after 45 days, 237 people, including 40 families, were sheltered on Friday December 10 in centers foraccommodation – even if they don’t know for how long.