Migrants bid to reach Britain fall as security tightened

CALAIS, France: French police said on Saturday around 300 migrants in Calais attempted to reach Britain via the Channel Tunnel overnight, a significant drop from previous nights after security in Calais was beefed up.
On Thursday night, French authorities faced more than 1,000 attempts by migrants camped out in the port of Calais to reach the undersea tunnel.
That number was already significantly down on the more than 2,000 daily attempts by migrants to breach the defences recorded earlier in the week.
Ten migrants have died attempting to smuggle across the Channel to England since June.
France this week sent 120 additional police officers to the northern port city to stem the crisis.
A spokesman for Eurotunnel, operator of the trains that link Britain and France through the tunnel, said there was “much less disruption” at its terminal near Calais since the reinforcements arrived to bolster a 300-strong existing police contingent.
Late on Friday the first attempts under cover of encroaching darkness began at around 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) when a group managed to access the embarkment lanes before being chased off by police. At around 2:00 am on Saturday some 150 migrants were escorted back towards Calais.