In the early hours of this morning French police evicted the entire woodlands in Dunkirk where over 300 people have been seeking refuge. After a week of constant harassment, hundreds of CRS and Gendarmerie officers swept through the forest, removing people, destroying their shelters and forcing them out into the storm.
False promises were made that buses would take them to accommodation centres. Instead, hundreds of people were left by the road in the torrential rain. Young families with small children sat huddled under tarpaulin sheets just metres from a roundabout.
For many this has truly been a breaking point. Mothers and fathers struggled to fight back tears of frustration and despair while they stood in the downpour, while others just wept uncontrollably. As always the responsibility to respond and support this community fell on the shoulders of small NGOs with just handfuls of volunteers.
The situation today was a disgrace on the part of the French authorities and was a gross display of the inhuman treatment these people suffer. We would like to thank the Refugee Community Kitchen, Refugee Women's Centre and Solidarity Border for their support today and for their constant efforts and presence.
If you would like to volunteer please get in contact. Alternatively, you can support our work by donating via our website below. If you are not able to do either, you can still help, share this and keep raising awareness of what is going on at our borders. Speak out against this kind of disgusting behaviour and against the mistreatment of refugees and displaced people.
In Solidarity. In Defiance.