A SQUALID shanty town has been cleared by French riot police after fears were raised that the Paris site was becoming a hotspot for festering diseases and an ‘open-air toilet’.
More than 1,850 UK-bound migrants were crammed into the Eole gardens, using old tents, broken furniture and other provisions to create a home while waiting for a permanent home in Europe.
Riot police moved in to clear the gardens of migrants who had made their home in the shanty town
But pictures taken during the evacuation of the makeshift tent town, close to the Gare Du Nord in the 19th arrondissement, revealed the squalor the thousands of migrants were living in.
Despite charity groups like the Salvation Army providing support in the form of tents and food, the shanty town had quickly descended into an unhygienic mess with migrants forced to wash and drink at standpipes, using the park as a toilet.
Fears that the sub-par sanitary conditions would see an outbreak of scabies and other serious contagious diseases sparked the police intervention.
Riot police pushed their way into the rubbish-strewn gardens, close to the Eurostar hub, soon after 6am on Monday in the second evacuation of the site in just a month.
Migrants were left surprised by the evacuation, after having just received more provisions to support them.
“We were not expecting this,” said Tegani Ugomai, a 26-year-old from Darfur in Sudan, who has been travelling with five other young men.
“Tents and food were being handed out over the weekend, but now we are all being split up. The French do not want us here.”
The park has also been plagued by violence as gangs from different nationalities, including Afghans, Sudanese and Eritreans, clashed.
The desperate migrants were also tempted with people smugglers hanging around the area to offer passages to London, via train or plane, for the equivalent of around £2,000, with a 'temporary passport' included.
The huge numbers of migrants were put onto a fleet of hired coaches then distributed to about 60 temporary accommodation centres, including gyms, across other parts of France.
But concerns have been flagged that the numbers will surge upwards once again with many of those camped out in other areas making their way straight to Eole park.
Migrants had set up the camp in the park after Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that the city's first-ever international refugee camp will be built outside the French capital later this summer.
French housing minister Emmanuelle Cosse was present at the 'evacuation', after saying: 'Camps are not the solution.
“The solution is to receive people in different locations in existing structures so they can be integrated in our country.”
France remains in a state of emergency following last year's terrorist attacks, during which Islamic State killers slept rough in Paris, and travelled across Europe as refugees, before murdering almost 150 people in the city.