British govt. under fire for ‘exaggerating’ migrant crisis in Calais

The UN's special representative on migration has accused the British government of exaggerating the migrant crisis in the French town of Calais.

Peter Sutherland said the scale of the crisis is "exaggerated beyond belief" and being "calculated to inflame tensions."

He slammed the Tory government for failing to tackle the poor conditions of migrants in the Calais camp.

"The first thing we have to do collectively is to deal with their conditions…Instead of talking about sending Gurkhas or building fences, we should be thinking of the humanitarian crisis,” Sutherland added.

The comments came shortly after migrants stormed the Calais Eurotunnel terminal in the border area between France and Britain, causing road congestion in the area.

The situation escalated in the early hours of Thursday after a group of about a dozen migrants tried to break in to the terminal of the railway tunnel linking France to the UK.

Reports coming out of France suggest that some 3,000 migrants have gathered in the French port town of Calais, many of them hoping to find a better life in the UK.

Meanwhile, the British prime minister has warned that the migrant crisis in Calais could last throughout the summer.

“This is going to be a difficult issue right across the summer…I will have a team of senior ministers who will be working to deal with it, and we rule nothing out in taking action to deal with this very serious problem,” the prime minister was quoted as saying by the British media.

Speaking during an emergency Cobra meeting of Ministers in London on Friday, David Cameron said the situation in Calais is “unacceptable.’

He also said that Britain would work with France to find a solution to the crisis.

Meanwhile, a London-based human rights activist criticized the British government’s approach to the situation in Calais, saying there is no migrant catastrophe over there.

“There isn’t any kind of crisis or catastrophe coming. Migrants trying to come through have actually died and yet we have had not a word of condolence, pity, or shame or anything from the British government,” Arzu Merali told Press TV’s UK Desk on Friday.

“Many observers believe the government is deliberately doing this in order to ratchet up tensions both in Europe and internationally,” she noted.

The head of the Islamic Human Rights Commission also blamed the UK government and other Western states for giving rise to migrant crises by fueling wars in other countries.

“The migrant crisis is actually a crisis for migrants themselves, many of whom [are] fleeing wars in Syria, Libya that have been directly fueled or created by the United Kingdom," she concluded.

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