Police dismantle new Paris tent camp housing 1,500 migrants

Police in Paris on Friday began evacuating a tent camp where some 1,500 migrants were living in unsanitary conditions, the latest operation to dismantle such camps sprouting up around the French capital.

Migrants gather and wait before being evacuated from a makeshift migrant camp set up between the metro stations of Jaures and Stalingrad, in Paris, on September 16, 2016. CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

Police moved in at dawn to remove the migrants, mainly from Sudan, Eritrea and Afghanistan, who were sleeping in tents and on mattresses in the camp in northern Paris.

France has received only a tiny proportion of the million-plus migrants who have crossed into Europe in the last 18 months, with many refugees seeing it mainly as a transit country to other destinations.

But it has struggled to accommodate them.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced last week that the city will open its first refugee camp in mid-October in a bid to take thousands of people off the streets.

Friday's operation was the latest of more than 20 such evacuations over the past year.