Paris police accused of harassing refugees, stealing their blankets

Paris: Paris police is harassing refugees by stealing blankets from them and waking them up in the middle of the night, a charity said.

According to Doctors Without Borders, refugees from mostly war-ravaged countries are forced to sleep rough on the streets of Paris as the city’s only refugee center has become overcrowded.

“In the heart of winter, public powers should be able to provide shelter for all migrants, as a matter of urgency. Instead, the forces of order confiscate their covers or force them to stay standing in a waiting line for hours, in a ridiculous bid to remove this population in distress from public view,” the charity said.

Many of the migrants and refugees hail from countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea. Some of them want to reach Britain, which bars most of them on the basis of EU rules requiring them to seek asylum in the first European country they set foot in.