Two migrants, one from Libya and the other from Morocco, robbed two cars outside a cancer ward in the French city of Lyon. One of the cars belonged to a young girl scheduled to be hospitalized with cancer.
The two thieves, Hamza and Mohamed, stole bags belonging to the girl and her family from a parked car outside the Léon-Bérard hospital in the 8th arrondissement.
“We didn’t know what was in the cars, we made a mistake,” said Mohamed and Hamza, aged 32 and 34, respectively; they were arrested on Saturday last week outside the hospital, which specializes in oncology treatments for children.
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They broke into a Clio and a Mercedes to steal bags and suitcases. The other car belonged to a nurse who worked at the oncology center.
They were arrested shortly after the theft with bags and suitcases still present in their vehicle, according to a report from French newspaper Le Progrès.
Hamza had no criminal record in France up until his arrest, and has already been sentenced to two months in prison for the theft. The second perpetrator, Mohamed, has already been imprisoned twice, once in 2020 and again in 2021. Despite having no official papers or right to asylum, he was not deported. For the latest theft, he was sentenced to six months in prison.
France is facing a tremendous surge in crime due to its rising migrant population. French President Emmanuel Macron admitted last year that half of all crimes in Paris are committed by migrants, but some say that the real figure amounts to two-thirds. Theft also remains a serious problem. Just this month, one migrant was imprisoned for committing over 100 thefts and other burglaries in just three months. In January of this year, an Algerian migrant known as the “most active thief in Paris” was sentenced to three years in prison.
