A16: eventful chase between Belgian police and suspected smugglers of migrants, mass accidents
By AFP, published 05.05.2016 at 14:10 , Updated 5:50 p.m.
Coudekerque (France) - Four suspected smugglers of migrants, including two gunshot wounds, were arrested on Thursday near Dunkirk (North) after a dramatic chase with the Belgian police, who helped create chaos on the A16 Paris -Ostend with three pileups, one killed one.
Naturally, the driver of the getaway car said it was Iraq, as his three companions. This nationality was confirmed in the afternoon for one of them, known to the police services, for a fingerprint recognition, but not for others, who had no papers identity, told AFP the prosecutor Dunkirk, Eric Fouard.
Shots wounding two policemen with serious among the fugitives, collision injured two people to the tibia and pelvis, followed another accident a motorcyclist killing: in the North, the Ascension weekend, charged on because roads first “real” holiday in May, had very bad start.
It all started early Thursday morning on the area of Jabbeke Belgian highway near the French border, known to be frequented by smugglers of migrants to Britain, reported the prosecutor. Drivers prevent the Belgian police that four men threatened them with a knife after being caught “up to people in their trucks.” Dozens of refugees were later found piled in trucks, according to the Belgian Belga news agency.
To evade police control, the four alleged migrant smugglers fled in a large displacement registered in Britain. In the chase that is committed, reported the prosecutor, Belgian police manages to live up to the car, which struck the vehicle on the side of the police.
A police officer then pulls a dozen bullets, injuring the two rear passengers of the car pursuit, which nevertheless continues its route to 200 km / h.
The chase continues in France, where the Belgian police has discretion to intervene if the matter concerned under Tournai agreements signed by Manuel Valls in 2013.
Belgian police quickly informed of an accident in France some fifteen kilometers from the border, near the exit 62 of the A16, are resigned to ease off. For their part, the alleged smugglers lose control of their vehicle, which struck near the site of the accident one of the cars stopped on the emergency lane, injuring a young girl at pool before s’ Built in a truck.
- A motorcyclist killed in a powerful truck -
The four individuals were then supported by relief under the French police surveillance, which will place them in custody when they leave the hospital.
A gunshot and the occupants of the vehicle front, wounded by accident but slightly more were transported to hospital in Dunkirk, while the shot most seriously affected was transported by helicopter to the University Hospital of Lille.
indirect but dramatic impact, a biker, presumably Dutch, was killed by hitting a truck on a congested A16, about ten kilometers away. On the stretch of the first accident, the highway provided a chaotic scene: a car back on the roof, one with its engine block ground. The A16 had to be closed for several hours in both directions.
The four fugitives correspond to a “classical configuration smuggling” of migrants, according to the prosecutor, who however stressed that their profile was not established with certainty at this stage of the investigation.
The event came dramatically illustrate the ongoing struggle between security forces and networks of smugglers, extorting migrants crowding in Calais (Pas-de-Calais), Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk, or Belgium, thousands of euros in order to pass them in England.
From 3500-5000 migrants according to sources currently living in the “jungle” of Calais and its surroundings, while 1,100 others, Kurdish majority, are housed in a camp with international humanitarian standards in Grande-Synthe.