Migrants: UK is not a “safe haven” says Cameron

Drivers can be fined if their trucks are caught carrying illegal migrants, but according to BBC many don’t challenge the migrants because they fear violence.

Speaking at the Home Office, Mrs May said: “Crucially what we are looking at now is improving security at the railhead at Coquelles, so we can ensure people are not trying to come through the tunnel”.

“I want to meet family there, he’s waiting (for) me, you know”, said the young man, who traveled across the Mediterranean on a boat from Libya.

“Smugglers sell migrants the notion that Britain is the only El Dorado for a better life”, said Emmanuel Agrius, the deputy mayor of Calais.

The French Minister of Interior repeated Eurotunnel’s version of, saying that about 2,000 migrants disrupted the tunnel – “the most important attempt over the past month and a half”.

The man is actually the ninth to die while trying to clear the tunnel in just the last two months.

“The continuous pressure exerted every night is above and beyond that which a concessionaire can reasonably handle and requires a constructive and appropriate response from the (British and French) governments”, Eurotunnel said in a statement.

Chief Executive Jacques Gounon told French radio that the firm was up against “systematic, massive, maybe even organised invasions”.

There were wildly conflicting estimates of the people involved in Wednesday’s rush for the tunnel, from 150 to as many as 1,200.

“It was over 100 on a number of trains. It’s an unusually high number, normally it’s a handful or zero”, the British source told AFP.

French authorities have deployed an extra 120 police to Calais and the UK government has pledged to invest £7M in fences and security measures.

Security at the Calais port was stepped up in mid-June, driving migrants – who previously tried to stow away on trucks that take ferries across the Channel – to try their luck smuggling through the undersea tunnel instead. Early Thursday morning, there were no reported delays on either side of the Channel Tunnel on what is expected to be a busy day at peak European vacation season.

Deputy first minister John Swinney said the Scottish food sector has been particularly “hard hit” and the Scottish Seafood Association (SSA) has warned that struggling firms could close.

Cazeneuve and his British counterpart, Theresa May, met on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, and May was due to chair a meeting of the government’s emergency “Cobra” committee in London on Wednesday.

“This is very concerning”, he told reporters.

“But we need to protect our borders by working hand in glove with our neighbours the French and that is exactly what we are doing”, he said.

May announced that London would pay out an additional seven million pounds (9.8 million euros) to help France secure the Eurotunnel site on its side of the Channel.

Britain has already spent €4.7 million on barriers aimed at securing access to the terminal and the platforms, which should be ready in August, Eurotunnel said.

But the crisis shows no sign of easing.

Some 3,000 migrants live around the tunnel entrance in a makeshift camp known as “The Jungle”, making the northern French port one of the frontlines in Europe’s wider migrant crisis alongside Italian and Greek islands used an entry point for those crossing the Mediterranean from Africa or the Middle East.

One Syrian man, who gave his name as Abdulaziz, queued up for cream at the medical tent, his eyes red with tiredness and his face pockmarked.