Juliette Jabkhiro

GRANDE SYNTHE France (Reuters), – A makeshift camp in northern France near Dunkirk was demolished by police on Tuesday. It housed scores of migrants, who claim they flee war, poverty, persecution and other violence from the Middle East. They hoped to reach Britain.

A reporter from Reuters saw armed police officers entering the camp. It runs alongside a former railway line. Workers in protective suits began to pull down shelters and tents.

Police routinely clear out the camps. According to one worker for charity, Grande-Synthe had been evicted on a regular basis over the last few weeks.

Twenty-seven migrants drowned https://www.reuters.com/world/five-migrants-drown-crossing-channel-france-britain-bfm-tv-2021-11-24 in the Channel last week as they attempted to make the perilous crossing from France to Britain across busy shipping lanes in a dinghy that deflated in the open sea.

The majority of migrants make it to country holding centers, where they can be encouraged to apply for asylum. However many return to the Channel coast quickly.

Hussein Hamid was 25, an Iranian Kurd. He said that this was the second occasion he’d been expelled. The first time, he was bussed from Tehran to Lyon, located 760km away to the south.