UK wants French camp shut - report

Eurotunnel is increasingly being used by would-be immigrants

LONDON, England -- British Home Secretary David Blunkett is reported to have asked the French government to shut down a refugee camp near the entrance to the Channel Tunnel.

Blunkett phoned Daniel Vaillant, France's interior minister, to say the the Red Cross camp at Sangatte "was not helping" Britain combat illegal immigration, according to Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

The camp, which holds some 700 refugees, is half a mile from the French entrance to the tunnel under the English Channel.

The cross-Channel service run by the British-French company Eurotunnel is increasingly being used by illegal immigrants attempting to reach the UK from France.

A British Home Office spokesman would not confirm that Blunkett had asked for Sangatte to be closed.

"The Home Secretary has discussed very recently with the French interior minister the issue of Sangatte and migration," the spokesman told The Associated Press.

"Ultimately its location is a matter for the French, although we do believe its location is not helping the situation at the Eurotunnel."

Eurotunnel has spent more than $4 million to boost security to prevent illegal immigrants from trying to cross through the tunnel.

But hundreds have successfully evaded controls and found their way to Britain in trucks, aboard ferries and freight trains.

More than 40 Afghans caught trying to walk through the tunnel on Wednesday are believed to have come from the camp.

Eurotunnel, which faces the threat of sizable fines for every illegal immigrant who gets through, has gone to court to ask authorities to shut the refugee centre down.