Lille - French police arrested up to 200 would-be illegal immigrants who broke into a freight yard near the Channel Tunnel in hopes of reaching Britain, the SNCF state railway said yesterday. A spokesman said police were hunting for around 100 more refugees they believed could be hiding in trains at the Calais-Frethun yard.
The SNCF yard is near a Red Cross camp at Sangatte that houses about 1,200 refugees, mainly Afghans, Iranians and Kurds.
SNCF said its freight traffic between France and Britain had been paralysed since midnight as a result of the break-in, but was slowly returning to normal.