A young woman was gang raped during the destruction of the Calais Jungle, French prosecutors said today.
The attack took place on Tuesday morning when five men set upon the Ethiopian refuge.
It came as prosecutors said three suspects involved in the knifepoint rape of another woman around the squalid shantytown last week could have been people smugglers.
They may now have escaped to Paris, along with hundreds of others displaced by the destruction of the Jungle, which at one point had up to 10,000 residents.
It became notorious for a range of crimes during the past few years, including rapes and other sexual assaults.
‘The latest rapes are both being investigated as a matter of priority,’ said a source close to both investigations, which are being led by prosecutors in nearby Boulogne-sur-Mer supported by judicial police.
‘In both cases those responsible are likely to be a long way from Calais by now, but everything is being done to try and find them.’
Discussing the October 18 rape of the interpreter, who is married and lives with her husband and two children in Paris, the source said: “She has produced a description of the three men who attacked her, but it is unreliable so will not be released as a portrait.
“The men wore hoods, and there is very little chance of finding them in Calais now. It is thought that many of the traffickers have headed for Paris in the short term.”
The woman who was raped on Tuesday this week was examined by a forensic doctor but had difficulty communicating because she only speaks an Ethiopian dialect.
She is currently still staying in Calais until a translator can be found, said the source.
Massive fires were lit across the Jungle on Wednesday, hastening the end of the camp, as more than 4000 migrants were bused to centres all over France.
Today a few hundred stragglers were left in the still smouldering wreckage, as riot police wearing full body armour patrolled.
There have been migrant camps in the Calais area for at least 20 years, as thousands of residents used them as a springboard to reach the UK, where they claimed asylum or disappeared into the black economy.
But the French authorities have pledged that no more camps will be allowed, and that they will maintain a zero tolerance approach to those trying to get to Britain illegally.
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