Two Belgian policemen were arrested after being found in a French border town with a vanload of migrants, officials said on Thursday, sparking a diplomatic incident.
The police van carrying 13 migrants and the two policemen was stopped by French police in Nieppe, a town on the Belgian border, on Tuesday evening, after crossing from Belgium. The Belgian policemen were arrested and questioned before being released, an official source said.
The policemen, from Ypres, said they had picked up the migrants after finding them walking along a road in Belgium. One of the officers, Georges Aeck, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF:
“We didn’t want to leave them... On the side of the road to walk to the border. “So we took them... In the direction they wanted to go.”