Gangs tell migrants to hide in WW2 bunkers

EVIL PEOPLE-SMUGGLERS USE NAZI BLOCKHOUSES AS STAGING POSTS

- PATRICK HILL

SMUGGLING gangs are ordering migrants to hide in former Nazi bunkers before they board dinghies to cross the Channel to Britain.

The derelict concrete forts are hidden in dunes less than a mile from the French coast between Calais and Dunkirk. They were part of Hitler's so-called "Atlantic Wall" - built to try to stop the Allied invasion of Germanoccupied France in 1944.

One local told us: "The gangs are using the bunkers as a final staging post for the migrants to rest and prepare for the final stage of their journey.

"Large numbers of them arrive each day and stay huddled together inside them out of sight through the night before leaving early to get on dinghies.

"Police are aware of what's happening but there isn't much they can do."

The blockhouses, on the outskirts of the small town of Grand-Fort-Philippe, include a former anti-tank gun garage, weapon storerooms and barracks. Smugglers take migrants there after herding them onto buses, which are free to travel on, outside a supermarket near Dunkirk.

They get off at a bus stop and are taken to the bunkers, a 10-minute walk away via a park.

Our investigators watched on Thursday evening as more than 70 men, mostly from the Kurdistan region, were led there with the intention of being guided to small boats in the early hours of the following morning.

When we approached the group early the next day, a man who appeared to be in charge demanded angrily: "Why are you here? What do you want? Go!"