A spokesman for Eurotunnel said around 200 migrants broke into its French terminal and got onto the tracks.
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The move came after several weeks of attempts to penetrate the sprawling Eurotunnel site, with migrants trying several times a night to outfox hopelessly outnumbered security officials and police.
Eurotunnel has said it “deplored” the accident, and a spokesman added: “It’s another very regrettable incident which serves to highlight the risks associated with crossing the Channel illegally”.
A large number of refugees reportedly arrived in a well-organized manner, and about 100 of them managed to break into the terminal.
But they began to disperse when the police turned up around 10:30am and blocked off the ring road leading to the port, an AFP correspondent said.
The police made 23 arrests in clashes that left six injured, after heading off the migrants at a junction between the different tunnels 15 km from the French side.
Eurotunnel said its Le Shuttle freight and passenger services between Folkestone and Calais were affected in both directions.
Eurotunnel indicated, according to Reuters, that traffic levels were back to normal after “safety checks”, but passengers should expect delays of up to two hours for the rest of Saturday.
Last week, a teenager who may have been trying to reach the United Kingdom died after he was hit by a train near the French entrance to the tunnel.
“This is something new”, a police source said to Reuters, referring to the sudden violence of the migrants at Calais.
At its peak, the number of attempts to board lorries or trains was around 2,000 a night – but that has since fallen.
Massive efforts to secure the vast complex have failed to dissuade people fleeing conflict or poverty in the Middle East and Africa from risking their lives one more time.
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An estimated 5,000 refugees displaced from countries including Syria, Libya and Eritrea are believed to be camped in and around Calais.
