Knife fights and murders in Calais migrant camp 'run by Kurdish mafia with fear'

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Hundreds of men, women and children shiver with cold and terror in 'Kurdish mafia-controlled' camps in France as they attempt to reach Britain in hopes of starting a new, safer life

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In a refugee camp in Calais

A harrowing number of 1,500 migrants, including women and children, brave freezing conditions as they hope for a new life in Britain.

They spend each night in tents at a camp in Calais and another site 42 km away in Dunkirk. People visited the sprawling communities, which are hidden in the woods.

And we saw a man with a knife fighting another with a branch next to a train track in Dunkirk.

We were also reprimanded by a man who ran a food stand, known to be controlled by traffickers, who claimed that our reporting to the camp would result in a show of force from the police.

Hundreds of children endure squalid and dangerous conditions at Loon Plage camp in France (

Picture:

Charlie Varley/varleypix.com)

Afghan teenager Ezatullah Noori is terrified of crossing the English Channel by boat (

Picture:

Charlie Varley/varleypix.com)

One migrant, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: 'It's very dangerous here. The Kurdish mafia run both the camp and the smuggling routes.

"They rule by fear. I'm afraid of everything...