Authorities in France have evacuated 1,850 refugees from a makeshift camp in the north of the country’s capital, Paris. Local officials said on Monday that the refugees and asylum-seekers were living in tent camps put up at Jardin d’Eole Park, which had also been evacuated a month ago. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of the French capital city, said there had been 1,300 people at the camp on Sunday, but the numbers surged as word spread that they would be re-accommodated.

The refugees – mostly Afghans, Sudanese and Eritreans – were taken by bus to about 60 different reception centers in the Paris region, Hidalgo said, adding that it was the 23rd operation of its kind in the capital since June last year.  France has struggled to cope with the high number of refugees and asylum-seekers arriving in the country in the last two years, with hundreds sleeping in camps that spring up before being closed by the police. The European country accepted to take in 400 refugees a month from Greece as part of a European Union relocation deal it signed in September last year.

Presstv