Police night raid brings to an end refugees' occupation of church

The four-day occupation of a Calais church by 99 refugees seeking asylum in Britain ended relatively peacefully early yesterday morning when riot police cleared the building.

But confusion still reigned over the fate of dozens of asylum-seekers arriving in the port daily and the estimated 5,000 refugees who have been given badges permitting them to stay in the Sangatte refugee camp near Calais until April.

"I fear that we are going to live through another humanitarian horror," said Abbé Jean-Pierre Boutoille, the dean of Calais, who led negotiations with the refugees inside the St Pierre-St Paul church.

French authorities saw hope in the fact that 76 of the 99 refugees removed from the church agreed to make formal applications for asylum in France. Until now, few of the refugees arriving in the Calais area had been willing to apply for French asylum, knowing that this would bar them from seeking asylum in Britain.

French officials said that their change of mind followed intense efforts by Father Boutoille and others to explain that circumstances had changed: Britain had tightened its asylum laws; the Sangatte camp would close from April; tighter security meant few illegal migrants were now reaching Kent by ferry or through the Channel Tunnel.

The refugees entered the church as a "temporary shelter" on Sunday but refused to leave in protest against the closure of the Sangatte camp to new arrivals last Tuesday.

Among the remaining 23 refugees removed from the church, 13 accepted a five-day stay in shelters near Paris, an Afghan accepted assisted passage home, two minors were released and a man with a weapon was taken into custody.

SixIraqi Kurds refused all options and were given an "invitation" to quit French territory. This means they will be dumped by police many miles from Calais. Under the French courts' interpretation of European asylum laws, people cannot be forcibly repatriated to countries where they face ill-treatment.

The 76 refugees who have agreed to seek French asylum will be taken to shelters in Paris. They will be allowed to remain in France with minimal assistance and no work permit while their cases are examined over the next two to three years. The evacuation was completed peacefully despite threats by refugees to fight or commit suicide if any attempt was made to remove them.

Father Boutoille apparently warned the asylum-seekers that they would be removed. He persuaded police to go into the building when the refugees, mostly young men in their 20s and 30s, were asleep and less likely to resist.

The jumble of options facing the 99 men and youths from the church illustrates the confusion surrounding the fate of other migrants in the Calais area. The French authorities hope that word of the changed circumstances in Calais will filter back down the refugee grapevine and reduce the flow of migrants arriving at the Channel coast.

The Red Cross estimatesthis flow to be running at up to 50 people a day.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister, said on Tuesday that 5,000 refugees had been fingerprinted and given badges allowing them access to the Sangatte camp before it closed to new entrants.

Of these, almost 2,000 stay in the camp at any one time. The Red Cross estimates up to 2,000 others are still in the Calais area, or touring other ports, trying to gain illegal entry to Britain.