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| - A French court on Wednesday handed two Eritreans 12-year jail sentences for the killing of a young Sudanese man during a brawl in a migrant camp in 2016. Estifanos Habtu and Tsehaye Tsegish, were found guilty of violence leading to manslaughter for their part in the beating. During the trial, in the northern city of Lille, witnesses had described them as leaders of a gang of people smugglers. Both had denied the charges, but they were convicted of inflicting the fatal blows on 25-year-old Sudanese migrant Mohammed Elsarag. Two other Eritreans, Mihri Abrahem and Erymis Tekla, were given sentences of 18 and 12 months for their part in the attack. The fight broke out on the night of October 17, 2016, when between 150 and 200 people were living in the camp at Norrent-Fontes, around 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the northern port of Calais. Elsarag, was later found badly beaten by the side of the road and died while being taken to hospital. A Eritrean migrant who was there that night told the court: "At first, we only wanted to scare him (Elsarag) but everyone was worked up and it degenerated." In the end, the victim was hauled out of his tent and dragged into the woods where he was beaten, he added. Tsegish's lawyer Gael Dennetiere had argued that several brawls had erupted between different migrant groups in the camp that night. That made it impossible to know "during which one the victim received the (fatal) blows". But Julien Michel, prosecuting, said the accused had applied "the law of the jungle, which is intolerable on French territory". Once Habtu and Tsegish have served their sentences, they are banned from French territory for life. Calais and its environs have long been a magnet for migrants hoping to smuggle themselves into Britain aboard a truck or train crossing the Channel. In late 2016, the squalid "Jungle" tent city, which at one point housed 10,000 migrants near the port, was razed by the authorities. The camp in Norrent-Fontes was also torn down. cor-jpa/cb/sjw/jj
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