25 Jan 2016

UK truck drivers call for more security after migrants storm port

10:43 am on 25 January 2016

British truck drivers are calling for the French military to be deployed in Calais after hundreds of migrants blocked the port and boarded a passenger ship.

Security forces were drafted in at the weekend after 350 migrants descended on the port and some boarded P&O's Spirit Of Britain ferry.

The incident happened during a protest at the port in favour of migrants.

UK Road Haulage Association Richard Burnett said drivers faced daily attacks and intimidation and warned it was "only a matter of time before our worst fears become a reality and a UK-bound truck driver is killed".

Drivers have had bricks, rocks and a metal spear thrown at their cabs, shopping trolleys thrown from overhead bridges and have been held at knifepoint while refuelling vehicles, he said.

French Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 35 people - 26 migrants and nine activists - were arrested during the incident on at the weekend.

He said mobile forces, including riot police, gendarmes and border units, had been mobilised for several months.