Moroccan Migrant Faces Deportation After Being Victim in Paris Camp Attack

The facts date back to December 8, 2021. While they were in a migrant camp set up in the Bercy park, in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, a Moroccan and other individuals were attacked at 7 a.m. by a sexagenarian, Mr. W., armed with a one-meter-long blade. "Death to migrants," the aggressor shouted. He hits several tents. The aggressor would have "started to lacerate tents and a fight with exiles would have followed," said Kerill Theurillat, a Paris official of the association Utopia56, which intervenes on this camp where about fifty people live.

Immediately afterwards, the camp occupants overpower the sexagenarian. Alerted, the police arrive on the scene. It takes away W. M., as well as all the individuals involved in the violence. Four of the five assaulted individuals, except the minor, are even placed in police custody for 48 hours. "After their custody, they told us they had received no care and had no access to an interpreter. Apparently, they weren’t really questioned either," Cloé Chastel, the former head of the day reception of the Aurore association, present that day in the Bercy park, told the newspaper Le Monde.

After their placement in police custody, they will all be brought before an investigating judge for "gang violence". Thanks to the work of the associations and the court-appointed lawyers, the judge better understands the case. The victims are released but placed under the status of assisted witnesses except for a Moroccan national in an irregular situation. He will receive an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) from the prefecture. He is accused of having committed "intentional violence with a weapon and in a group". According to witnesses, he had only used a branch to defend himself against the assailant and his saber. A year later, he commits another crime. He is accused of the murder of three Kurdish nationals, rue d’Enghien in Paris on Friday, December 23.