London student gang-raped by Calais migrants

A London student was gang-raped as she investigated an illegal migrants' camp in Calais, police said today.

The woman, thought to be aged about 30, is believed to have been attacked on Tuesday night by some of the men she intended to write about.

Today detectives were rounding up potential witnesses, who include some of the 500-odd vagrants sleeping rough as they attempt to board ferries or trains to England.

The woman is believed to have wanted to spend time with the migrants in a notorious makeshift camp called The Jungle.

Most of the vagrants are from Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere in the Middle East, although police think many are from eastern Europe and the Balkans.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was described as "a London student who had travelled to France to highlight problems surrounding clandestine immigration".

She was taking her own photographs.

A local police spokesman said: "She appeared to be working alone, which was clearly a very dangerous thing to do. We fear that the men she was reporting on attacked her in the wood where they were staying."

The Jungle is part of a disused industrial zone called The Dunes, a short walk from the ferry port.

The migrants, who live in tents made out of plastic sheets, are supported by local charities but the new Right-wing council in Calais refuses to give them permanent accommodation.

Father Jean-Pierre Boutoille, of the refugee charity C'Sur, said: "There are lots of journalists, including students, who come here to get to the heart of what's going on, to write reports and produce films.

"When reporters contact us, we always ask to accompany them. We would never allow a young female adventurer in this wood, especially not at night. On Tuesday we did not receive any requests for assistance, and nor did any other charities."

Yesterday about 100 of the migrants were rounded up by French riot police.

One, who asked not to be named, said: "Yes, I saw a young journalist with a camera. Lots come this way. I don't know who she was exactly, but she was young, perhaps 30, and a student from London. The word is that something happened to her in the woods."

Calais became a magnet for migrants in the late Nineties after the opening of the Sangatte Cross Centre, which housed 67,000 of them over three years.

Many tried to jump on to slow-moving trains at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel or hide inside lorries. It was closed in 2002 and the new local council cancelled plans for a second Sangatte.

The Home Office said the number of refugees caught entering Britain illegally from Calais has fallen to around 1,500 a year from 10,000 in 2002, when Sangatte closed.