PARIS, France -- The controversial Sangatte refugee camp at the French end of the Channel Tunnel will close down completely at the end of the year -- three months earlier than planned.
The camp by the International Red Cross, has often been used as a springboard for illegal immigration into Britain. Eurotunnel said it intercepted about 18,500 refugees trying to enter the Channel Tunnel in the first half of 2001 alone.
"Sangatte will close completely on December 31, not in April as planned," a spokesman for the British government told Reuters on Monday.
The Sangatte camp is on land owned by Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel and was requisitioned in 1999 to house up to 200 people. But the numbers held there -- mostly Kurds and Afghans -- have soared.
Britain has agreed to take in 1,000 Iraqi Kurds and 200 people of Afghan origin from Sangatte, as part of a deal worked out by Home Secretary David Blunkett and French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, officials said.
About 100 refugees -- mainly Iraqi Kurds and Afghans -- holed themselves up in November in the church of St. Pierre-St. Paul in Calais in protest at plans to close the Sangatte holding centre.
The migrants had threatened to kill themselves if the building was stormed, but they were evicted by police who entered the church after a five-day standoff.
The centre had been closed to new entrants the week before after a long-running cross-Channel row.
Britain was angry that France had turned a blind eye to migrants trying to get to the UK from Sangatte via the Channel Tunnel while Paris argued it was Britain's reputation as an easy place to start a new life that made it attractive for asylum seekers.
France traditionally does not send migrants back to their home countries if they come from conflict zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Kosovo.
Last year, six people died trying to sneak through the tunnel, and more than 100 were injured.
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