The Grande-Synthe Refugee Camp
I recently came across a two-page report I had written for work in 2016. The report is a dry and technical summary of what is one of the saddest memories I hold.
That year, I was asked by the humanitarian organization I had been working with to conduct a needs assessment in a makeshift refugee camp whose population exploded almost overnight. I was leading a small but well-experienced team, and supported remotely by the same person who was then overseeing our busy operations caring for (mostly) Syrian refugees on the shores of Greece.
Within a few days, I arrived in Northern France with a colleague. We took a rental car that was way too fancy for the work we were about to do but was the only automatic gear option available that day, and we followed the GPS using instructions we received from our contacts working in the camp. It led us into Grande-Synthe, a suburb of Dunkerque, and as we reached our destination, I parked our rental car in a small open area between a number of private homes. It had gravel ground, surrounded by suburban houses and green lawns. And although a dozen other cars were already stationed all around us, it was evident that none of these vehicles belonged there. I felt like I was standing in someone’s backyard. And I was. We opened the trunk and replaced our shoes with big rubber boots, preparing for a muddy February terrain, although our next steps were on standard asphalt. And in this surrealistic setting, we headed towards what used to be a public park and was now a crowded camp hosting some 3,000 refugees.
The Gendarmerie, the French police force, let us in through the gate. We surveyed the muddy field, making our way around flimsy tents that were barely staying up after the week’s torrential rain. We met with other NGO workers, with volunteers, and most importantly – with the camp’s residents.
Anyone with a working pair of eyes (and legs strong enough to carry them through the mud) could see it was a disaster zone. You don’t need to be a humanitarian professional to observe tents too wet to keep children warm at night, or the absence of basic needs like food, sufficient bathroom stalls, or lighting. Conditions were wholly unsanitary, with a whole lot of danger lurking around, particularly for the women, the children, and the elderly.
But observing only gets you so far. In the days that followed, we did what we’d been sent to do: we learned as much as we possibly could about the conditions and context for those caught in this place, the support available to them, and the needs that weren’t being met. During this process, we heard many personal accounts, getting a glimpse into the camp residents’ lives up to that point. The people we met were mostly Iraqi Kurds, but others were from Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Syria, and even Vietnam. They’d all been making their way to the UK.
One day, sitting around an improvised fire and surrounded by piles of trash, residents of the camp told us about the shootings at night, being refused from local hospitals, and their search for family members trapped in other countries. Many volunteers came from the UK to challenge their country’s restrictive migration policies by dedicating their own time and skills. They revealed to us how French authorities prohibited them from bringing in tarps or even dry blankets. While these were basic and much needed items given the harsh winter conditions, any materials that could be deemed as aiding to formalize the settlement were prohibited and stopped at the gate.
Over the next couple of weeks, we met with everyone we could to understand the full scope of the situation: the city’s mayor trying his best to resolve the humanitarian crisis his country refused to admit and his city hall was not equipped to handle, major medical INGOs offering limited services out of concern for staff safety, church groups preparing meals for distribution, and devoted volunteers burned out from working (and some living) in the camp. Throughout our brief mission, we visited the camp daily and followed up on developments in the lives of the residents we’d become familiar with.
During the day, children would walk out of the camp to play in a nearby playground, sometimes accompanied by a volunteer or two. In the evenings, dozens of young men, boys really, would head out with sleeping bags in tow. They were attempting to smuggle themselves into the UK in refrigerated container trucks entering the Channel Tunnel, a 50km underwater tunnel connecting southern England and northern France. Most would fail, ending up back in the camp, under arrest, or worse.
Seeing babies, pregnant women, and unaccompanied teenagers living in a shelter or makeshift camp is always a difficult sight. There’s not one humanitarian emergency I’ve worked on that hasn’t left a deep mark on me. The needs are always greater than the response and you do your best to help where you can. It’s far from simple, but knowing you can offer support to some extent gives you the strength needed to carry on the work.
This place had a distinct air of despair that I could not shake off. I still can’t.
The French and British did everything in their power to make these people invisible. “These people” is exactly how they would refer to them. By the time I left France, the makeshift camp had been moved. Only a couple kilometers away from its original location, but deliberately relocated far from the residential area and the public eye, isolated on the side of a highway.
Over the ensuing years, both the camp in Dunkirk and another, even bigger camp in nearby Calais known as “The Jungle” were repeatedly burnt down and demolished. I ardently followed the news from afar, looking on heartbroken at the images of migrants on hunger strikes, some sewing their lips together in protest.
My role was clear. I’d been asked to determine whether it was necessary, and possible, for our organization to offer humanitarian services in the camp. Clearly yes, there was a need, but despite our efforts, we weren’t able to provide services there. We explored ways to find solutions to the operational challenges and even sought out new staff to make it happen. But the donor community wasn’t interested in this particular crisis, and the environment was deeply restrictive. We never sent another team to France, and as a result, I felt helpless and guilty. I’d failed the people I’d met.
Reflecting on the time I spent in France has always been deeply distressing. Not only because of the inhumane conditions people were forced to live in but also because it’s not just a memory in my mind, it’s a current reality. I can’t think of Grande-Synthe without wondering where those people are today. How they are. I wonder about the young and old who fled war, discrimination, and poverty, taking tremendous risks to pursue what they thought would be a better future, only to be stuck in wet, freezing tents, with the world choosing to ignore them.
In 2020, I went back to school to dedicate time to the questions (and questioning) that had bothered me at that stage of my humanitarian career. Full-time study gave me the luxury of time, some of which I spent reading analyses of the European response to migration since. This research, along with a healthy distance from working in emergencies, offered me a new perspective. I was able to shake off some of that personal feeling of failure, realizing much wider, systemic issues were really at fault.
According to a Human Rights Watch report, in northern France alone thousands of migrants— including hundreds of unaccompanied children—were still living in old warehouses and under bridges in 2021. Several hundred of them camped in a forest near Dunkirk. In the same year, the police conducted over 1,000 evictions, giving people a five-minute warning to leave their tents before destroying and seizing what little they had. This inhumane situation continues to be inflicted on people in one of the wealthiest parts of the world today.
For those who survive the cold, the disease, and the lack of human dignity, can we possibly expect them to not develop a sense of utter disappointment with the system?
The camp residents saw me and others like me come and conduct our evaluations. The NGOs, the police, the city hall, national politicians. We all knew how bad it was and yet we failed to help them. Is the hard work of the caring volunteers who forfeit their own comfort, income and sometimes even safety enough to shine through and overcome the pain caused by the inaction and actions of institutions and governments?
Additional context from Wikipedia:
Basroch refugee camp was situated in Grande-Synthe, Dunkirk, France. It began as an informal refugee camp in a muddy field in about 2006. As late as summer 2015 it still only contained about 60 residents, but by January 2016 the camp had expanded to more than 2000 people.
The very rapid expansion created a humanitarian crisis, as the site was not at all suitable for the large numbers of people who were living there. The rats, refuse and disease led to the camp being referred to as "Europe's worst refugee camp." It was described as "appalling," "gut-wrenching" and "deplorable."
The international NGO Médecins Sans Frontières stated: hygiene was dire in Basroch camp, and several areas became a muddy quagmire every time it rained. The mayor called it “the camp of shame” and MSF workers described it in interviews as a “gigantic refuse dump”
Photos by the talented Mickey Noam-Alon.