(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . ‘Reduced to a brawl’: punitive killings in Calais overlooked [1] [] Date: 2024-02 “At the end of 2007, beginning of 2008, the Saint-Hilaire area was in the hands of a small group of Sudanese,” Boillet recalled. The Norrent-Frontes camp was their holding area for people waiting their turn to cross. Mostly Eritreans and Ethiopians, penniless and weary of waiting, they knew they were dependent on the smugglers who ran the area. But a mutiny was brewing. One day in February 2008, “30 determined people from Calais” arrived at the camp. Shots were fired, but the balance of power turned and the smugglers fled. “The next day, we went back to the camp,” recalled Boillet. The newcomers told us, “we've organised ourselves. We've got the parking lot back and we're going to get everyone through, free of charge.” And indeed, within a few weeks, most of the people who had been in Norrent-Frontes had crossed into England, “without paying tribute to others”. “It was at this point that, on the volunteer side, we started talking about ‘door closers’ rather than ‘smugglers’“, Boillet said. Once in the UK, “people would call to inform those who had stayed in Norrent-Fontes, and word would then spread to Calais for others to try their luck from the Saint-Hilaire area.” According to Boillet, door closers would stay for a few weeks before jumping in themselves, leaving a replacement in their stead. The “self-managed” operation lasted until 22 July 2008, the night of the pancake evening when Hamid was killed. That night, the smugglers who had been evicted five months earlier returned. “There were several of them: Sudanese but also a Chadian, and they waited until the migrants from the camp were in place in the parking lot to attack them,” Boillet said, citing testimonies she collected after the fact. People panicked and ran. “The attackers managed to isolate a small group, including Mansour [Hamid],” she said. Blows rained down, a knife was pulled, and Hamid collapsed. He was stabbed, Boillet said, “at heart level”. The aftermath “It was a shock, a shock for the entire camp,” Delannoy said. The next day, he and some volunteers opened the doors of the Norrent-Fontes church for the migrants to meet and talk. “We also organised a vigil at the church, despite the fact that Mansour [Hamid] was Muslim,” he said. “[His death] was significant.” Hamid was buried two weeks later in Lens. “[His] relatives came from England to attend the ceremony,” Delannoy said. Two men were put on trial in January 2012. The perpetrator of the fatal blow was sentenced to ten years in prison. The other was acquitted of “violence as part of a group resulting in unintended death”, but was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for aggravated violence. During the hearing, defence lawyers said what happened was “a brawl that got out of hand”, and “nothing more or less than regular ethnic rivalries”. Boillet is still bitter about that description. “Mansour [Hamid]'s murder was reduced to a brawl between black people,” she said, “but it was a punitive expedition to recover a crossing point.” A second death Eight years after Hamid’s death, Norrent-Fontes was the scene of a second homicide. Mohamed El Sarag, a 26-year-old from Sudan, was killed there on 18 October 2016. “He had been excluded from the camp by the smugglers following an argument,” explained Nathalie Perlin, a volunteer at Terre d'errance. “He went to Calais for two weeks, then returned to the Norrent-Fontes camp without asking permission.” He then went to the Saint-Hilaire area to attempt the passage. “The smugglers held a grudge,” Perlin said. “They started beating him because he had disobeyed.” El Sarag was beaten into a coma and left to die in a field. Emergency services got him to the hospital while he was still breathing, but he couldn’t be saved. Barely a few hours after the death was announced, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture stated that the murder was the result of a “fight between around 50 Sudanese and Eritrean migrants in an alcoholic state”. The deputy public prosecutor even spoke of “a hundred people beating each other up”. Migrant rights groups dispute that characterisation. “Analysing this murder in terms of ‘community’ or ‘inter-ethnic’ brawls is too easy an explanation,” said a joint press release co-signed by several associations. “It forgets that policies of closure and non-acceptance force people to live in deplorable conditions and throw them into the hands of unscrupulous people.” Two Eritreans were sentenced to 12 years in prison for El Sarag’s death in 2020. In February 2017, a nameplate in several languages was installed at the entrance to the path leading to the Norrent-Fontes camp, to pay tribute to El Sarag. “Not everyone in the camp was in favour of this idea, but it seemed important to us,” said Perlin. “It was a message for the smugglers, and for the government. Someone died here and it’s not normal.” The people living in Norrent-Fontes camp were expelled in September 2017. The barracks, makeshift shelters and tents were all destroyed, and the nameplate also disappeared. “It feels like no one ever lived here,” said Perlin. And that no one ever died there. Explore the rest of the series [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/reduced-to-a-brawl-punitive-killings-in-calais-overlooked-migrants/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/