Number of Police Officers Injured in Migrant Clashes at Calais Rises to 26

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Initial reports said 16 officers were injured when migrants from the so-called Calais jungle camp pelted officials with stones late Sunday after attempts to disperse them using tear gas. The violence broke out after around 200 people created roadblocks across highways leading to the Channel Tunnel.

"This is the first time that it has been so violent and that we've had so many injured colleagues… They have 26 injured colleagues," Gilles Debove, of the SGP Police-Force Ouvriere Unit union’s Calais branch, told The Local newspaper.

Debove observed that normally "pretty discreet" strains are becoming "very intense" in the encampment of some 6,000 people. The union representative attributed the rise in tensions in tightened security around the Channel Tunnel, frustrating attempts for migrants to cross it in hopes of reaching Britain.

At least 16 migrants have died while attempting to cross into the United Kingdom through the Channel Tunnel.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in mid-October that he had ordered the deployment of 300 additional gendarmes and 160 riot police officers to reinforce the current forces stationed in the port city.