HUNDRED men hoping to sneak into the UK as illegal immigrants were being quizzed last night after a British journalism student was gang-raped in France.
The girl was savagely attacked while investigating a notorious shanty town called The Jungle, set up on the outskirts of the Channel port of Calais.
She had been taking photographs and conducting interviews at the slum camp in wooded sand dunes and was assaulted after being invited into one of many makeshift huts.
No one attempted to help, despite her shouts and screams.
Hunted
At least six men are being hunted by French cops.
The sickening attack on the 31-year-old London-based student happened on Tuesday night.
According to a police source her attackers were men who had agreed to talk to her.
She had travelled to France to highlight problems of illegal immigration as part of a college project.
Hundreds of men desperate to reach Britain are living rough in squalor on the French coast.
A local police spokesman said: “She appeared to be working alone, which was clearly a very dangerous thing to do.
“We fear the men she was reporting on attacked her in the wood where they were staying.”
The Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor’s office said: “There are refugee huts in the wood. She was taking a photograph of a group of migrants when one of them asked her to look at something else.
"She followed him inside one of the cabins, and that’s where it happened.”
Locals in Calais described seeing the petite brunette earlier on Tuesday, taking her own photographs and working alone.
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 know the refugees as we see them every day.
“We would never allow a young female in this wood, especially not at night. On Tuesday we did not receive any requests for assistance, and nor did any other charities.”
It appeared last night that one man actually raped the girl. But others may face charges of aiding him, or failing to help the victim.
An 18-year-old Afghani called Jalil told The Sun: “The police have been here and taken a lot of people away.
“They said six men attacked a girl from England.”
Some men being quizzed by French detectives had tried to board ferries and trains to England yesterday.
Detectives took the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to a charity soup kitchen in the centre of Calais in the hope she might recognise her attackers there.
She sat in the back of a police car for more than an hour as hundreds of migrants, mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq, collected free meals.
But a source close to the investigation, said: “It is a very difficult and delicate situation.
“Police understand that the victim has been through the most horrendous ordeal. But they have to work fast if they are to catch the culprits.
“The attackers don’t have any reason to hang around — they could go anywhere.”
The Canadian-born victim was still with police last night and has postponed her return to Britain.
Ordeal
The British consul general in Lille confirmed that the woman was a student at a London journalism school.
It is estimated that around 1,000 people live rough in a disused industrial zone a short walk from Calais ferry port.
The fly-infested camps house young men waiting for a chance to cross the Channel in the back of a lorry or sneak on to a ferry.
They are supported by local charities, since a newly-elected council in Calais refused to provide them with permanent accommodation.
The town became a magnet for immigrants in the late 1990s, following the opening of the controversial Sangatte refugee centre, now closed.
In 2005 a gang of would-be immigrants was implicated in the rape of a resident of Oye-Plage, near Calais.
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